


Temporary Madness

by ashesandhoney



Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: All Human AU, Anal Sex, Bondage, Dom/sub, Fluff and Smut, It's all fluff. This is a fluff fic full of smut, M/M, Multi, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2018-06-06 22:37:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 51,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6773080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandhoney/pseuds/ashesandhoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes William Herondale got drunk and said stupid things. </p><p>Sometimes he woke up in the morning to find that his boyfriend hadn't forgotten them.</p><p>Sometimes a threesome is a better idea than expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tuesday Morning in Bed

**Author's Note:**

> (formerly titled Maybe It's Not Such A Bad Idea which is a terrible title and needed to go)
> 
> This dirtier and less character driven than most of my smut fics (say First Thee Days or Beginning of Forever) but it sure is fun to write dirty dirty smut sometimes!

Sometimes William Herondale got drunk and said stupid things. 

Sometimes he woke up in the morning to find that his boyfriend hadn't forgotten them. Jem was sitting up in bed with a cup of coffee in hand when Will clawed his way out of sleep. He blinked up at Jem's hair sticking up in the back and his attention on his phone as he read something. It was probably something sensible like the the news. Will rolled over and wrapped an arm around Jem's waist and pushed up the soft fabric of the blue t-shirt to kiss his skin. Jem chuckled and pet his hair like he was a cat wanting to be fed. 

"So," Jem said.

"Hmm," Will muttered.

He licked Jem's stomach and Jem's muscles twitched. Will grinned. He felt heavy and half asleep and a small corner of his mind was hoping that it was Saturday and they could stay in bed a while longer. Jem's fingers were gentle as Will shifted so that he could kiss down the lines of Jem's muscles to his waistband. Will pulled Jem down so that he was slouching rather than sitting. He swore but managed not to spill his coffee on Will's head.

"Do you ever wake up not horny?" Jem asked.

"As often as you wake up not hungry," Will said.

"So never," Jem said.

"Days that start with sex are always better," Will said.

"Horny bastard," Jem said affectionately and his hand had slid down so that now he was rubbing the back of Will's neck which was a nice enough sensation to slow Will down a little bit. He didn't move. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek on Jem's stomach, right above his navel.

"Are you going to fuck me or just mock me?" Will asked.

"I was going to mock you," Jem said.

"Alright, get that out of the way then," Will said.

"You suggested a threesome last night," Jem said.

Will choked a little on that memory. Not because he hadn’t said it, he had said it. He remembered saying it. Jem's fingers at the back of his neck rubbed little circles but he was also holding Will down. Will didn't argue it, he let himself be kept in place and pressed his eyes shut against how ridiculous that comment had been. His hand was still tucked into the top of Jem's waistband but he didn't slide it any lower. He heard Jem take a sip of coffee.

"Don't pretend you don't remember it, you were not that drunk," Jem said.

"I remember it," Will admitted.

"Did you have someone in mind?" Jem asked.

The answer to that question was yes but that wasn’t something he could say out loud. A very quiet crush on a girl at work was a very different thing than suggesting taking her to bed with or without his boyfriend. 

"No," Will said.

"Boy or girl?" Jem asked as though he’d said ‘yes’ because Jem had the unerring ability to pick out one of Will’s lies. Will could lie to anyone else including his own mother but he couldn’t lie to Jem.

"Are you still mocking me?"

"Considering not mocking."

"Bullshit."

"William, I am not mocking you. When I mock you, I'm far wittier."

"Yeah, that's you, hi-lar-i-ous."

"I am, I crack myself up daily, now tell me what you were imagining."

Jem poked Will in the ear until he finally rolled over and make eye contact. Jem slouched against the headboard and he was watching Will over the rim of his coffee mug. Will could tell he was smirking behind the porcelain. He always chose plain coffee and plain mugs. This one was white china with a black geometric pattern printed on it. 

Jem's eyes were dark over the rim. For all that he lived his life like a little old man with a newspaper and waking early, the edges of a tattoo were visible on his neck. Even his hair was a pale gray like a little old man's. Will had thought it was a dye job when they'd met in college, after five years together, he knew that it was just a matter of genetic luck. They differed on whether or not it was good luck. Will liked it, Jem didn’t though he also didn’t dye it back to brown. 

"Did you just ask me to tell you my fantasies?" Will asked.

"Yes, now do it," Jem said.

Will sat up, straddled his lap and took his coffee away. Jem pouted but didn't complain as Will put the coffee on the side table. Jem's hands stroked up Will's legs, he'd only worn boxers to sleep and he could feel that the hand Jem had wrapped around the coffee cup was just a little warmer than the other one. Will pressed down so even with clothing between them the position was intimate. Jem licked his lower lip before he put his expression back together.

"Girl," Will said.

"Hmm," Jem said.

"Don't make therapist noises at me, Carstairs," Will said.

"That wasn't therapy noises but if you want to talk about how your relationship with your mother-" Jem started.

Will scoffed at him and then tried to clamp a hand over his mouth but Jem was already twisting away from him. Cackling. Will had been an English major but he had taken an introductory psych class in second year and come out of it with a hatred for Sigmund Freud and every single one of his stupid ideas. Jem had listened to all of Will's complaints in what had seemed like a caring and sympathetic way but Will was discovering that what Jem was actually doing was storing away all those details to use for annoying him later.

Will was bigger and holding his boyfriend down shouldn't have been so hard but Jem played just dirty enough to win. He tickled. Jem's hands slid up under Will's t-shirt and he jerked back, giving Jem enough space to roll away. Will grabbed for him but he was fast and managed to roll out of bed and land on his feet. Will got a hold of his pajamas before he could get more than a few steps away and pulled them halfway down his ass.

"No theorists in the bedroom," Will said.

"You don't know how to party," Jem said.

"I'm pretty sure that I'm the one recommending that we pick up some girl to screw. That sounds like a bit of a party," Will said and then immediately regretted how sleazy it sounded.

"It does," Jem said turning back to look at him with a half smile.

"Are you still mocking me?" Will asked. 

"No," Jem said. 

Will pulled him closer. Jem grinned as he let himself be tugged into place by the waistband of his pants. The fabric was soft and Will tightened his fingers in it as he swung himself around so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed and could position Jem between his knees. Jem reached down and played with his hair as Will tried to decide on what to say. His hair hung down to his collar and he was at the point where he needed to decide if he was going to cut it back to respectability or grow it out into ponytail and a man bun territory. He hadn't decided yet in part because of how much he liked the feeling of Jem's fingers pushing the curls around. 

"You want to have a little extra company in bed?" Will asked. 

"I've never considered it before but I'm warming up to the idea," Jem said. 

"Ok," Will said. 

He hadn't expected it to get this far. It was an idle fantasy, the kind you day dreamed about sometimes but didn't really think would ever happen. He didn't have much a plan. He didn't know what the ground rules were or could be. He didn't know how you even went about finding a third person to join you and your boyfriend for a one night stand. That was what it was going to be. Just a one night stand. A bad idea, hot and a little dirty and gone by morning. 

"This is about sex," he said. 

"Ok," Jem said. 

"I hate you when you do that serenely calm shit," Will said. 

"I don't know how you survive being anxious all the time." 

"Pick a girl up at a bar, get a hotel room, mess around?"

"Sounds romantic." 

"Serenely calm and still a sarcastic asshole." 

"I am a complex individual but if it’s making you anxious, we can work out the details later. Right now, you need to decide what you're going to do with that hand you have halfway down my pants." 

Will still held a fistful of Jem's pajamas in his hand. He'd pulled the fabric tight and down far enough to see a little bit of hair and that line that ran up his pelvis to his hip. It was distracting. Will ran his tongue from where his knuckles rested against the very lowest part of Jem's stomach all the way up to his hip bone. Then he smiled and nuzzled Jem in the side just to make him jump. Tickling Jem was hazardous because he flailed gracelessly but the little flinch was enough for Will. He slid off the bed and pulled Jem's pants down with him. 

"Not a bad choice," Jem said. 

"I was going to see if it was possible to fuck all the sarcasm out of someone," Will said. 

"I don't think that's how sarcasm works," Jem said. 

"Admittedly, I haven't gotten anywhere with it for years but someday I'll fuck you hard enough," Will said. 

"Promises, promises," Jem said. 

He liked how much of Jem's height was in his ridiculously long legs because Will didn't have to slouch or stretch or do anything but kneel to get this view. He hadn't touched Jem's cock yet and it was already half hard. Will looked up and held Jem's hips a little tighter between his hands. Jem was smiling at him. 

Jem was going to say something else but Will stopped him by taking his entire cock into his mouth. Jem gasped. This was something that got a lot more difficult once he was completely hard but when he was still a little bit softer and smaller, Will could get his nose down against Jem's stomach and suck hard. Jem grabbed him by the hair and held him there. For a little while, he let it happen. He moved his tongue against the underside of Jem's cock and sucked. He could feel the change. Harder and longer bit by bit until it was too much to hold if he still wanted to breathe. 

He pushed on Jem's hips and Jem loosened his hold so that Will could pull back. He pulled all the way back so the tip rested against his lower lip but wasn't in his mouth. He looked up and matched the smile Jem was giving him and then started to bob his head up and down. He wrapped his hand around the base and squeezed until Jem made a little protesting sound and then loosened his hold but just a fraction. 

"Fuck," Jem muttered. 

Will pulled back and grinned at him again. He licked very gently and softly around the very top making Jem mutter more swear words at him. He didn't let up his hold. It probably hurt a little but they'd been at this long enough for Will to know when he was crossing a line and to trust Jem to tell him when he needed to stop if he missed it. Jem didn't protest and didn't use a safe word. He just shut his eyes and tightened his hand in Will's hair and breathed hard. Will released his hold and swallowed Jem's cock in the same movement. 

He pushed past his gag reflex. He found that if he pretended hard enough that it wasn't there, he could have Jem balls deep before his body realized what he was doing. He couldn't breathe like this but it was worth it. He licked at Jem's balls and bobbed his head until he couldn't hold out any longer and then pulled back and gasped in air. He did it twice more before he had to stop and rest with his forehead on Jem's hip and let his breathing catch up. 

"Take off you're shirt and get up on the bed," Will said without raising his head. 

“It’s fucking hot when you do that,” Jem said. 

"Yeah I know, get up on all fours and I'll show you something else," Will said. 

Jem did as he was asked and Will felt a little thrill run through him at that. Jem following orders happened rarely enough to be a novelty.

There was a power struggle at the center of their relationship that never spilled out of the bedroom but working around it was a huge part of almost every bit of sex they had. Will demanded only as far as he was willing to accept that he'd have to answer to that same level of demand later. Jem switched better than he did, Will had to actively remind himself, over and over, to let go and be the submissive. Jem seemed to slip into it easier but he preferred being the one in charge as much as Will did. Sometimes they just let all that go and as much as Will knew that was always the best sex, he sometimes couldn't help himself from making the power play and demanding the submission. 

Will slapped Jem's ass. Not as hard as that little pushy dominant voice in his head wanted him to but hard enough to earn him a muttered, "Fuck you." 

But Jem also arched his back a little bit and shifted his knees so he was better braced. 

"Are we playing that game?" Will asked and let a little bit of pleading into his voice. The whole prospect of a threesome made him anxious. He both wanted it badly and regretted bringing it up. He knew he was pushing his anxiety out into the sex. He knew that. Knowing it didn't stop him from wanting to grab hold of every bit of control he could get from Jem. 

"Whatever pretty girl you pick, you have to watch me take her first," Jem said. 

"You've never been with a girl in your life," Will said. 

Jem sat up and leaned back. His knees were still spread on the bed but now his back was against Will's chest and he tilted his head all the way back so his throat was exposed. Will slid his hand up Jem's neck. Will stroked his neck as Jem cuddled into the hold. 

"True, I haven't and it's going to annoy the hell out of you when I screw it up but you agree to that and you can tie me up and spank me until my ass is red if that's what you want today," Jem said. 

The idea of watching Jem fuck someone else was surprisingly hot even if he fumbled through it. He probably wouldn't. Sex with a girl wasn't so different and Jem was probably going to blow her mind. Will buried his face in Jem's hair and breathed in the smell of him because it helped calm him down. He needed to not picture some girl panting up at Jem while smiled at her and then looked up to see if Will was still watching. That image was haunting him already and it hadn't even happened yet. 

"I can suffer through that," Will said. 

He whispered an order and then pushed Jem back forward on the bed. Jem landed on all fours and stayed in place for a moment. Will didn't hesitate before he slapped his ass again. Jem jumped and sucked in a breath as he climbed back up the bed. Will was smiling as he cuffed him to the headboard with his hands shoulder width apart. Jem put himself in a position that let him stay up on all fours but he gave Will a look that said he knew what was coming next. 

Will took a long moment to look at him like this. Naked. Hands and knees. Hair falling in his eyes. Cock hard and hanging down between his legs with no hope of an orgasm if Will didn't choose to give him one. Set of his mouth just a little bit confrontational. 

"You're a good Baby aren't you?" Will said. 

"I would rather you leave me unable to walk tomorrow than call me baby," Jem said. 

"Shouldn't have told me that, Baby, I'm in a mood today," Will draped his body against Jem's and reached under him to trail his fingers up and down his cock so gently that it was nothing but frustrating. 

"Fuck you," Jem said again. 

"That's not any of the words that would make me stop," Will said. 

They had a standing safe word but using it under anything but duress was something they both avoided. It violated some unspoken competition. Will was being an asshole even bringing it up but he had Jem tied up and hard enough that his breathing changed when Will touched him with even a brush of a finger tip. He was more of an asshole the more submissive a position he had managed to get Jem into. If he spent less time screwing with Jem's preference for dominance, he'd probably get Jem to sub for him more often but his self control wasn't that good. 

"Ass up, Baby Boy," Will said. 

"I hate you sometimes," Jem said. 

Will  jerked his dick a few times and Jem groaned before Will grabbed his hips and pulled him back so that he couldn't keep himself up on his hands anymore. Jem landed on his elbows and while having his his face pressed against the mattress was the end goal, Will let him stay propped up for now. He slapped Jem's ass again. It was starting to get pink so he did a few more times on each side to make it very red. Jem wasn't too big on being tied down but he liked a little big of pain and he shifted his hips as Will stopped slapping and rubbed his ass. 

He nudged Jem's knees apart and reached for the lube. Jem groaned as he slipped a single slick finger inside and followed it a moment later with another. He was slightly power drunk and once he'd fingered Jem enough to get him to start to relax, he reached back into the drawer of sex toys he'd pulled the lube out of and found one of the larger butt plugs. Jem tensed in surprise when Will tapped it against his opening. 

"Come on Baby, it's the vibrating one you like," Will said. 

Jem didn't call him a name this time but he huffed out a breath in annoyance. He liked this. He just didn't like that he liked it. 

Jem would never ask for this but he would mutter about how good it was when he was finally sated later. Sex was one thing. Butt plugs left lodged in his ass was just a little bit demeaning. Will had, years and years before, briefly dated a boy who had a sub space where he could get off as much on something being degrading as any sensation he got from it. Jem did not share that particular kink. He shared the same willowy frame but beyond that he was nothing like Will's ex. 

Will kept tapping gently until Jem relaxed and pushed back a little and let the toy slide inside. The noise he made was fantastic. A wanton groan that was more air than sound. Will clicked the thing onto a low setting that would make it impossible to ignore but not give enough sensation to get him anywhere near release.

Will said nothing as he climbed up in front of Jem and knelt in front of his face so that his dick touched Jem's cheek. Jem's mouth was open and his cheeks were flushed. He wasn't going to close his mouth all the way as long as there was anything in his ass. Will swung his hips just enough to make his cock bounce off Jem's cheek until Jem caught it in his mouth and started to suck. Will stayed still and leaned his shoulders back against the headboard to keep his balance and just watch. 

"You'd probably be pissed if I just stayed here until I came, wouldn't you?" Will said. 

"You could just turn up the vibrator, it does a better job than you do anyways," Jem said pulling back as far as his position allowed. Will’s cock still rested against his face. 

Will barked out a laugh and leaned over Jem to slap his ass again, "For that comment, I'm going to make you come twice." 

"Poor me," Jem said with a mock sigh before he went back to sucking.

Will was hard but still far away from coming. He wiped his dick on Jem's face, leaving a wet trail along his cheek and then pulled his chin up for a kiss. Jem kissed him back, hard. Will realized that they'd gotten this far without a kiss so he made it last before he left Jem smiling, lips still parted, to go slide up behind him. Jem wiped his face on his shoulder, trying to get the worst of the mess off and Will slapped his ass, harder than before. Jem cried out in surprise. Will did it again on the other side but didn't get another cry. 

He eased the plug out and Jem groaned for him which wasn't quite as good but it was close. He could have just jumped any more formalities and probably gotten Jem to cry out for him again but that came at the risk of hurting him and while Will like to make Jem do things that made him scowl and orgasm hard, he didn't want to hurt him. Fingers and lube and going slow made Jem squirm and Jem squirming featured in every sexual fantasy Will had. 

When he finally knelt up behind Jem on the bed, Jem sighed in relief. 

"Don't get too comfortable," Will told him. 

"You're all talk," Jem's voice was breathy. 

Will pulled him back so he couldn't use his arms to prop himself up. Jem didn't complain even as his face hit the mattress and Will's hands on his hips pulled his back into an arch that kept his ass raised. Jem rattled his handcuffs as he tried to make the position more comfortable. Will rubbed his back gently. Jem struggled against the mix of gentle hands and impending roughness. Will entered him slowly but all in one movement. Jem pushed back to meet him. 

"Needy aren't you, Baby?" Will said. 

"If you fuck me, you can call me anything you want. Please stop teasing or I am going to pass out," Jem said. 

Will was all the way inside and he leaned just a little, he was big enough that all the way in wasn't comfortable and any minute Jem was going to start begging for him to move. He held himself still even though he was as needy as Jem was. He leaned in a little harder, making Jem squirm again. 

"Ready, baby?" he asked. 

"Fuck," Jem said. 

"Is that a yes?" Will asked. 

"Yeah, yes, fuck, please," Jem said. 

Will wanted to drag out the begging but his own self control wasn't good enough. He started slow enough to make sure that Jem was actually ready enough to enjoy it. All the way out and then all the way back in to the too much point. He was going to have to work on that self control problem because Jem’s back arched into him every time he bottomed out and he wanted to keep this going far longer than he could. He relaxed into a shorter but harder rhythm. Back and forth and back and forth, his hips slamming forward as he held Jem’s hips in position. 

He felt Jem tense beneath him and pulled out before the tension could become an orgasm. 

“Fucking bastard,” Jem said into the mattress. 

“You’ve got a dirty mouth, I should wash it out,” Will said. 

“If you don’t let me come, I might actually pass out,” Jem panted against the mattress. 

“I love watching you come, Baby, I wouldn’t deprive myself of that,” Will said. 

He uncuffed one of Jem’s hands and pushed him over onto his back. It took Jem a moment to catch up to the position change. He was still breathing hard, still on the brink of an orgasm. Will took his time reattaching the hand cuffs. Jem was flushed and trying to so hard to stop panting that Will couldn’t help himself from stopping to suck his dick for a few strokes to bring him back to the edge. 

“You still willing to take it twice?” Will asked. 

“Yes, please, just give it to me,” Jem said. 

“Ok, Pretty Baby,” Will said climbing up Jem’s body to kiss him hard and slow. Jem kissed back as his hips shifted, trying to find something to rub himself against. Will stayed out of reach and kept his knees between Jem’s so that his legs were too far spread to even get any friction against his own body. He bit Will’s lip and Will caught his chin and held him still. 

“Please?” Jem said. 

“Please what?” Will asked. 

He reached down and trailed a finger over the tip of Jem’s cock and watched Jem’s eyes squeeze shut and his mouth fall open. 

“Please,” Jem said again. 

Will waited, fingers still stroking the underside of Jem’s cock and his own dick throbbing at him to get on with it. He could count the number of time he’d gotten Jem to beg on one hand and this was too good to pass up. 

“Please fuck me,” Jem muttered as he nuzzled Will’s cheek. 

“Why?” Will asked. 

“Asshole,” Jem gasped out. 

“Tell me,” Will said. 

“Let me come, just let me come, please,” Jem said. 

Will leaned down and sucked on Jem’s cock. It didn’t take long. Jem squirmed and sighed and held back on the orgasm out of some stubbornness that didn’t quite make sense to Will. Jem would beg for it and then fight it. He fought longer than Will thought he could. It was a loosing battle. Jem was too close and already too hard to keep it in check. He came in Will’s mouth. Will used his hand to coax out every last bit but didn’t swallow. 

He climbed up Jem’s body and let it run out of his mouth onto Jem’s face. Jem swore and twisted away but he still ended up with his own cum spread across his cheek and running down his neck. 

“Fuck,” Jem said again. 

It didn’t really mean anything at this point. Jem knew that Will hadn’t come yet and he leaned back and spread his knees in an invitation. Will added more lube before he slid back inside. He couldn’t get the same depth in this position but being able to watch expressions cross Jem’s face more than made up for it. Will let his body take control this time and fucked him slow and hard. Little tremours ran through Jem’s muscles as he did. He had been on the other side of this, of the moment when the fucking continued after the orgasm and he tried not to be too rough. 

Jem usually let his hands wander and his hands climbed Will’s stomach and his chest as they moved like this. Each time Jem’s restraints rattled against the headboard Will cracked a smile. He liked being touched but the idea that Jem wanted to touch him and couldn’t was a turn on. 

“I really am an asshole,” Will said. 

“Wha?” Jem’s voice was more gasp than word. 

“I like you like this. Trapped and spent and still going because you’re mine,” Will said. 

“I’m still going because I want that second orgasm,” Jem managed to get out in a nearly normal voice. 

“Desperate for pleasure is still desperate. I think it might be the best kind of desperate,” said Will. 

Jem groaned and shifted his hips to push up against Will. Will grabbed his knees and forced him back into a difficult position, knees held wide and then pushed back towards the mattress so that Jem was folded in half. Will picked up speed. Jem was going to ache later and Will was going to take it all back at some point in the future but right now Will had all the control and it left him a little power drunk. 

Jem came first. It was close. Will’s orgasm was on the very edge as well. Jem’s shuddering muscles and the cry he let out pulled Will along with him and they came together. Will pressed as far inside as he could and made sure every drop was left inside Jem as deep as it was possible to leave it. 

Will slipped out of Jem’s body and fumbled as he uncuffed him. Jem was flushed and trying very hard not to pant. Will grinned at him and pulled him in close. They cuddled back into the blankets.  

“That was fantastic,” Jem said. 

“Mmmm,” Will answered. 

He had left come all over Jem’s face earlier and it had started to dry so now licking it off took a little more effort. He held Jem’s chin and lapped at it. He slid down Jem’s neck and got every drop. Jem kept his head back and his throat exposed so Will dragged his teeth over Jem’s pulse point just to make him jump a little bit. 

“I kind of like the idea of watching you do this to some girl,” Jem said. 

“I was thinking the same thing about you,” Will said with a laugh. 

He kept his face down against Jem’s neck. It was a little thing but it was just submissive enough to bring them back down to something like level ground after Will’s power trip. Will had the taste of come in his mouth and Jem’s legs tangled up with his and he could have sworn that their hearts were beating in time.


	2. Friday Night in a Dance Club

Tessa Gray was halfway through the internship from hell and that was her excuse for being at a bar alone. It was a dance club but they hadn't had a cover charge for girls and so she'd slipped inside because it seemed like a good enough way to disappear into a crowd. She wanted to disappear for a few hours. She hadn't even changed properly. She had thrown her blazer over the back of the couch, switched her shoes and left her apartment before she could second guess herself into crawling into bed with a cup of tea instead.

Even with a little extra eyeliner and a darker shade of lipstick than she'd usually wore, she still looked like an escapee from cubicle hell. The pencil skirt and silk tank top she was wearing were not really dance club clothes but no one seemed to care. She'd let her hair down and it was already starting to annoy her so she twisted it together and draped it over her shoulder as she took a sip of a glass of wine. 

Who drank wine in a club like this? She wasn't doing very well at the whole night out thing.

She finished her drink and drifted out into the press of the dance floor. People jostled her and she let the flow of the crowd push her around. She wasn't really dancing, just swaying. The bass pounded in her ears. What was she doing here? Why had she thought this was a good idea? Hands closed on her hips and she stopped moving. 

This was the point where she either ran or relaxed. She was going to make her apologies and run until he spoke. 

"I would not have pegged you for a crowd like this," he whispered in her ear. 

Girls at home had liked to gush about any accent that didn't come out of the continental United States. Tessa had been in London long enough that any appeal an accent might have had was washed away by the ubiquity. This voice had the accent and a richness to it that made her pause in her plan to run for home. She leaned into those hands and rather than turning, she tilted her head. He was familiar. It took her a moment to place him. 

Work. Editorial. Third floor. Working on the Turner book she had fantasies of burning. 

"Hi," she managed to choke out. 

"I seriously had you figured for tea and cats and Jane Austen," he said. 

"Usually," she said. 

Anything longer than one word was too much for her while she was held against Will's chest in the middle of a dance floor while he whispered into her ear. She didn't know his last name or anything about him beyond the office gossip that said he was both gay and taken and you shouldn't take his flirting seriously. Still he was gorgeous and he had opened the only conversation they'd ever had by literally stabbing a pocket knife through the Turner manuscript and telling her that every copy sold was going to be a personal offense to him, his family and his cow and so she shouldn't work too hard on the campaign. That conversation had left her with just the tiniest crush. 

His hands slid up to her waist and she bit her lip and moved along with him as he danced. He was close and he smelled good and she was maybe just a little bit touch starved after nearly seven months in London without even a close friend to hug. She spun around and looked up at him. Tall. Tall and not as gay as the gossip said if he was touching her like that. Her hand slid up his neck and into his hair and he smiled at her. 

She pulled him down to talk into his ear against the pounding music. His hair tickled her cheek and he held her close. Damn it but that tiny crush was blowing up each time his body shifted against hers. The little bit of a crush had been based on his curls and his sense of humour. This was lust. She could admit that. She just really liked how tall he was and the strength in his hands and his broad shoulders. 

"Rumour has it you're gay and taken, I'm guessing the first is wrong and I just want to be sure the second is too before I get too interested," she said. 

"If you want to be precise I am bi so that first part is wrong but the second part is true," he said. 

She drew back and frowned at him a little bit. He was hitting on her. She was sure that he was hitting on her. At least he was honest about being a cheating asshole. No. He wasn't hitting on her. He was just dancing. Everybody danced like they were trying to fuck with their clothes on in a place like this. It wasn't anything. That was disappointing but better than him being a cheater. 

"Wanna meet him?" 

No. She wanted Will to be single and interested and for his sense of humour to be backed up with a hidden sweet side where he loved kittens and cuddling and long walks on the beach. She didn't really want to meet this mysterious him.  

"Sure," she said. 

He turned her around and steered her off the dance floor with his hands still on her body. Small things to be thankful for. 

Him was a blonde talking to a very flirty girl on a bar stool at a table to the side of the room. The girl had an arm around his shoulder and was whispering in his ear. He glanced past her as though he could tell when Will was approaching and gently disentangled himselfand came over to make a bit of a show of kissing Will. Will didn't let go of Tessa while it happened. She was held against his side as the tall thin man took Will's face in both hands and kissed him hard. She started to step back but Will seemed to have forgotten she was there and just held on. Without really meaning to, she stared. 

"Sorry, a point needed to be made," he said to Tessa then to Will, "Is she gone?"

"Staring, glaring," Will said. 

Will steered them both away from his boyfriend's would-be date to something that approximated a quiet corner in a dance club. For the first time since he had grabbed her hips, Will let go of her entirely. She immediately missed the contact. Damn it. She was going to be a pining wreck for weeks off these two interactions. 

Will said something to his boyfriend that Tessa couldn't hear and then he introduced her as, "Gray from Marketing." 

"Tessa," she added. "Tessa Gray." 

"James Carstairs, Jem. Everyone calls me Jem," he said. "American?"

"From New York, I'm only here for another three months," she said. 

Thank the stars and all of heaven for that. She should never have taken the hellish internship in the first place. The pay was terrible, the shared flat she lived in was terrible, the work itself was terrible. She kept all of that to herself. 

"I think you're the first person Will's ever introduced me to from that job," Jem said. 

"Because that firm is the fourth circle of hell," Will said. 

Tessa started to laugh, "It really is, isn't it?"

"At least your contract has an end date and you can leave the country when it's over," Will said to her. 

"Get a new job!" Jem sing songed. 

"You need at least five years experience to get into any decent publishing house. I have three years left in my penance for picking English lit as a major," Will said. 

The exchange had the feel of an old comfortable argument, the kind that you had over and over again with someone whose views hadn't changed and wouldn't change. Tessa took a moment to take in Jem while they bickered back and forth. He was as tall as Will but without the broadness. He was also far prettier than most men were. She would have usually said handsome about a man but he wasn't, not really, he was beautiful. 

"What do you drink?" Jem asked her.

"Red or those fruity girly drinks," she said. 

He leaned into her personal space as he talked but didn't touch her. He smiled at the answer and then left her with Will to go and fight his way toward the bar. She watched him go. 

"He's cute," she said.  

"Fucking adorable and actually as nice as he seems, it's disgusting really, people aren't meant to be that nice," Will said. 

She laughed again. "So he doesn't stab manuscripts and wish terrible things would happen to their authors?"

"I've never seen him stab an inanimate object even when it's a ponderous, miserable extended metaphor for infidelity," Will said. 

The music changed and Tessa said, "Oh, I like this song, I actually know this song." 

"Dancing then, Jem'll find us," Will said. 

He grabbed her hand and pulled her back out onto the dance floor. They didn't push into the middle of the crowd but he pulled her back in against his body. She found it harder to relax this time. Last time, she had just wanted to dance and he had seemed interested. This time, she was busy talking herself out of her exploding crush because the guy had a boyfriend he obviously adored. She was too aware of his body and the way he smelled and his hands on her too thin shirt. 

"I won't bite you unless you ask me to," he whispered in her ear and she actually shivered. She couldn't even remember what the song was. Why wasn't she just walking away? That was the safest choice. She needed to cut her losses and leave before she found anything else to like about Will

"I think I'm going to run away now," she said into his ear but she didn't step back. 

"Why?" he asked. 

"Because I like you and you are not available," she said. 

"Where do you stand on bad decisions?" he asked. 

"Not there," she said finally pulling back. She didn't even want to hear him suggesting cheating on his adorable boyfriend. 

"Not that bad decision, come here," he said as he steered her off the dance floor. His hand on her back guided her back through the crowd but he didn't hold onto her this time. If he had, she might have just ducked away but the gentle touch wasn't as hostile and she didn't really want to run away. 

Jem fell into step with them as they broke into the open space between the bar and the dance floor. He handed Tessa her drink and she took it. It was less obnoxious than she was expecting. Coconut from the smell and with just a cherry sitting on it. Any time she'd ever sent a boy for a fruity girly drink he'd brought her something that came with a fruit bowl balanced on skewers sticking out of it. Will leaned in to whisper in Jem's ear. Jem watched her while he talked and he quirked his lip up at the side. 

Jem held out a hand like they were kindergarteners on a playground. She frowned at them both but she took it. His hand was damp from carrying the drinks. He pulled her along to the other side of the bar where there was a little lounge area. It was quieter here but there also weren't any empty tables. Jem just found a spot away from the bar where they weren't pressed in near anyone else. 

"What's your game?" she asked. 

Will started to say something and then failed. Jem grinned and waited until Will shook his head. She was left staring at them and their silent conversation. They were one of those couples. 

"Will has a bit of a crush on you," Jem said. 

"Good opening line," Will drawled and looked away from them both. 

Jem just laughed at him and then smiled at her again, "Let's try this, we were planning on picking up a girl tonight for a threesome." 

Tessa had made the mistake of trying to hide behind her drink and choked on a sip when he said that. Jem caught her glass before she could spill it and Will smothered a laugh and handed her a napkin. She coughed and took a few moments to reorder her thoughts. It didn't work. 

"Right, sure, 'cause that's a thing that people just do," she said. 

"The plan was a one night stand but then you showed up and Will kept staring at you and has told me three times already that it would be a very bad idea because you work together," he said. 

"How often do you do this?" she managed to say in a nearly normal voice. 

"Never have before," Will said. 

She took her drink back so she would have something to do with her hands. She was pretty sure they weren't going to be able to shock her into spilling it again. Pretty sure. It was good at least. She took another sip and looked up at Jem then Will. Jem was calm and Will was obviously nervous. He really did look like a boy trying to ask out a girl he had a crush on. She held his gaze because he was trying so hard not to keep it on her. His body language was relaxed but now that she was watching, she could see the tension in his shoulders. 

"Are you worried I'll say yes?" she asked. 

"I'm worried you'll tell the rest of your department that I'm a depraved sex freak, being out is already making that job a pain in the arse," he said like it was a joke. 

"Are you a depraved sex freak?" she asked. 

"Yes but I don't really want that advertised to my employer," he said. 

"I'd believe it of him, you look like a respectable person though," she said to Jem. 

Jem was grinning at the entire exchange like they were the funniest thing he'd ever seen in his life. He didn't quite look respectable. He was wearing a button down rolled up to his elbows but it wasn't buttoned all the way up and she could see the edge of a tattoo on his neck. That and the funny coloured hair, it wasn't blonde though the club lights made it impossible for her to say for sure, made him look a little like he belonged in a band somewhere. 

"I teach violin to children at my day job, I am very good at pretending to be respectable. I might actually get fired if it came out that I was a depraved sex freak," Jem said. 

She could picture him teaching children far more easily than she could imagine him doing anything that could be described as depraved. She glanced at Will who tilted his head as if it say, "See, I told you so." 

"Are you going to take me out on a date or just take me to some sleazy motel?" she asked. 

Had she actually said those words? She hid her expression behind her glass again. That sounded an awful lot like a yes. She had never gone home with a guy from a bar. Never. She should not be starting that kind of behaviour with two of them while the word depraved was being thrown around. 

Jem reached out and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. She tensed a little at the contact and met his eyes. He was calm as he considered her. This was the kind of offer that was never going to come up again. If it was terrible, then she could just walk away. Even now they had arranged how they stood so that her back was to the door. She could turn and leave if she wanted to. Three months from now she wouldn't even be living in the same country. 

This could be her one night stand story from her study abroad. Internship abroad. It didn't have to be anything but a one time bad idea. 

"A date could be arranged but you're also welcome to just say no," he said. 

"I don't think I want to say no?" she said it like a question. 

"Really?" Will said. 

She looked up at him and there was genuine surprise on his face. They'd been talking softly but this he said at a louder than regular volume a few heads turned to look at them. She took another sip and tried to ignore that this was a conversation she was having in a busy, public space. 

Jem touched her hair again, this time his finger brushed her cheek and the rest of the room fell away. Jem was the unknown in this. She knew a little bit about Will. About as much as she'd ever known about a boy she'd gone on a regular date with but agreeing to this meant agreeing to Jem too and she wasn't sure what to make of him. Tattoos and serene calm and an adorable smile and apparently he worked with kids. She reached up and returned the gesture, brushing his hair off his forehead and just barely touching his face. 

"Come dance," Jem said. 

"Dance?" she asked. 

"Don't try and make a decision right now," he said leaning in to whisper with his lips against her ear so she could feel him form each word. She leaned in towards him, "We'll dance, we'll decide on someplace to have dinner, nobody needs to commit to anything." 

She held out her hand again and he took it shoved Will along ahead of them. She left her half finished drink on a ledge full of abandoned drinks and empty glasses by the door.

Will's hand found her back and then wrapped around her waist as they cut back towards the dance floor. Her stomach dropped out but it wasn't a bad feeling. It was like that moment before a first kiss when it was all butterflies and nerves. The dance floor was busier as it got later and they pushed into the people. Will pulled her in against his chest so that he could keep her from getting jostled and Jem kept hold of her hand. When they stopped, she flashed a smile at Jem who turned back to her.

He put his hands on her hips because Will's were on her waist. Her stomach fluttered again but it was not first kiss butterflies. This was different kind of feeling. Lower. Warmer. Jem leaned in and skimmed his nose along her cheek and then leaned over her shoulder to kiss Will. She couldn't see it but she felt Will's hands tighten and they both leaned in so she was pressed into the space between them. When they pulled back Jem paused to look at her. 

He was pushing at boundaries then checking in. The kiss had been calculated.  

She bit her lip and smiled a bit theatrically. He laughed but it was lost to the crowd. The music was loud and Will kept moving against her. She had her arms around Jem's neck and she closed her eyes and there was sweat gathering at the nape of her neck from the movement and the body heat. Will's hands left her to touch Jem. There wasn't really much dancing. 

Her aunt's voice wormed its way into her head with the unwelcome description of 'sinful gyration'.

She nuzzled Jem's neck. He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead and she  braced herself with her hands on the back of his neck and leaned up on tiptoe to nearly kiss him. She drew back and waited for him to be the one to kiss her first. She saw his attention jump to Will before he closed the space and kissed her. She had been expecting tentative but he kissed her hard and was far more demanding that she expected. It took her a moment to catch up to him.

It had been too long since her last kiss. She melted into him and stopped caring about whether or not people were watching of if this was a good idea or even about why the hell someone like Will had a crush on someone like her. All her thoughts quieted and it was just Jem. 

"Enjoying yourself?" Will asked in her ear. 

She startled and the kiss broke apart as she turned to look at him. His half smile spread as his attention jumped from her to Jem. He reached out with a thumb and wiped some of her lipstick off the corner of Jem's mouth. Tessa ricocheted between shame and arousal as she watched it. 

This was the single sluttiest thing she had ever done in her life and she really really wanted another kiss. She wanted another kiss. She pushed Aunt Harriet's voice back out of her head and leaned back into Will as a rebellion against all those lectures on purity. 

Will actually picked her up off her feet when he turned her around. He was smiling at her when he put her down again. Her heart beat hammered in her ears and her body temperature kept climbing. Will kissed her very softly. First kiss kind of gentle. She had to twist her hands into his shirt to keep from ruining it by kissing him back too hard. 

"Jealous are you?" Jem asked. 

"Maybe," he said. 

Jem was leaning over her to talk to Will so she was between them again. Will had his fingers under her chin and he held her there while he turned his attention very briefly to Jem. Then he kissed her again, a little harder. She was very aware of Jem at her back and the way his hands slid down to touch her ass instead of her hips. She leaned back into the touch. 

A sleazy motel was starting to sound like a good idea. 

"We should leave," she said when there was a break in the kiss, "We're not even dancing and the drinks here are too expensive." 

Out on the street, the cold air sobered her up. It was May and not that cold but compared to the club, it was chilly. Will had been wearing a jacket, she hadn't even noticed but he wrapped it around her shoulders. He smelled good and she pulled the fabric around her just to nestle into the scent of him.

"We've left," he said. 

"Yeah," she said. 

"Where are we going?" Jem asked. 

"I don't know," she said. 

"Do you want something to eat or do you want to go back to yours or do you want to go back to ours?" he asked. 

“Right now, I’ll follow you anywhere,” she said.

"Shall we buy you dinner first or just take you home?" Will asked. 

"Home," she said.  

 

* * *

 

 

They'd taken a subway back to a small brick apartment building with a door that Jem had needed to lean on to get the key to work. They had made small talk on the way and she'd started to relax into them. Their easiness with each other was infectious. 

Tessa paused just inside the doorway to their apartment and Will set his chin on her shoulder. His hands slid up under the jacket she still wore and then under her shirt. Her breath caught and she leaned back against him. She closed her eyes for a moment as his hands slid over her stomach and pulled her back against his chest. He hadn't touched her since leaving the club and it was like a relief. 

When she opened them again, Jem had turned on the lights and had sat down on the arm of the sofa to look at her. It was a small apartment. She could see a kitchen tucked in against one wall but it wasn't its own room. A pair of doors led to dark rooms that she assumed were a bedroom and a bathroom. The living room had bookcases along one wall, windows along another and barely had enough room for a sofa, tv stand and a little desk.

"Are there rules to this?" she asked.

"I don't think so," Jem said. 

"Do you want there to be?" Will asked. 

"I just don't want to screw anything up," she said. 

"You won't," Jem said. 

He crossed back towards her. Will's arm tightened just a little bit. He had settled with it across her stomach so she was held tight to him. Tight enough that she could tell that he was interested. This was the worst idea she had ever had. She hadn't even kissed anyone in months. She hadn't even stopped to consider how little experience she had. Her virginity had been left behind in high school but she wasn't exactly an expert. She was out of her depth. 

Jem tilted her face up so that her head rested on Will's shoulder and then he kissed her. 

The kiss convinced her that this was the best bad idea she had ever had. 

His mouth was soft and Will's hand slid up to her ribs then he cupped her breasts and she let go of all the racing thoughts. Jem's hair was gray not blonde and feather soft under her fingers. The world didn't have to be bigger than the three of them. Not right now. Will squeezed and she arched up into the contact so he did it again just a little bit harder. She winced and pushed up against his hands at the same time. 

"Hey, be nice to her," Jem said. 

Will's hands softened again, rubbing rather than squeezing. 

"Can I see your tattoo?" she asked. 

"Which one?" Jem asked. 

"How many?" she asked. 

"Count them and tell me," he said. 

She brushed her finger tip over the little black line she could see at the collar of his shirt. She slid her finger down to the first button and rested it there. He watched her. Even his eyelashes were pale and it made his brown eyes look darker than they were. Deep brown. He nodded and she undid that first button and let her finger touch his chest. She had spent the ride over bracing herself for them to be rougher and faster than this. This was an entirely different kind of intensity. Than she had expected. 

She dragged it out both to see what would happen and because holding Jem's gaze while he smiled at her calmed down every over active thought her imagination could throw at her. Nobody rushed her. Will's hands slowed as well but didn't stop exploring under her clothes. She was going to be the one who broke the slow softness with her impatience before either of them did. One of Will's hands left her body and came around to slip up the back of Jem's neck. She was about three buttons from his jeans and his eyes jumped to Will for the first time since she had started. He glanced back at her but now that Will had his attention, his gaze didn't fix on her the same. 

She grabbed his now open shirt and pulled him forward by it until he was only a half step away from pressing his body to hers. Now that she had his eyes back, she started by pushing the shirt back from his shoulder to find the pattern that peaked out on his throat. It was smaller than she had expected, a looping symbol that didn't look like any language she could recognize. 

"One," she said and pressed a kiss to his chest. She kept her head down for a moment because his skin was warm and soft. She licked a slow line up to his collar bone before drawing back to look at him. He was staring at her again, smiling and beautiful. 

"Fuck," Will breathed out in her ear. Tessa turned back to look at him and he put a finger on her cheek and turned her face back to Jem and whispered, "No, no no no, do not let me distract you. I will keep my mouth shut." 

That, even more than Jem's soft smile, made her confident. She ran her hands over the rest of Jem's chest, leaning in to press kisses to his skin. Will stopped her with a hand on the back of her head that took her by surprise enough to make her stop and draw back a little. She'd almost forgotten he was there. He leaned in against her back to speak into her ear and press his entire body against her. 

"Suck a little, make him squirm," Will said. 

It took her a second to realize what he meant. He had stopped her with her nose skimming Jem's breast bone and moved a little to the left to run her tongue over Jem's nipple. 

"Good girl," Will said. 

She kicked her foot back, hitting him in the shin for that comment but didn't stop to tell him off for it. 

Jem held all her attention. She had never even considered doing this to a guy before but Jem made a soft sound when she sucked on his nipple and a louder one when she sucked hard. She switched to the other one and did it again. Will was behind her. His pelvis was lined up with her ass and he was hard now. He kept one hand on her hip to keep her against him and used the other to pull the jacket he had loaned her away. Jem's fingers were weaving through her hair. 

Jem lifted her head and kissed her again. Lips and his tongue pushing into her mouth. He pulled her away from Will and pulled her shirt up and over her head so when he pulled her against his chest, it was skin to skin. She sighed into his mouth and tried to match his kiss. He lifted her and perched her on the back of the couch before he drew back just enough to let her catch her breath. He pushed her knees apart and hiked her skirt up past her thighs while she closed her eyes and pulled in air that smelled like him because he was so damn close. 

She looked up to find them watching each other. She didn't demand Jem make her the center of attention again. She just leaned her head against his chest and joined him in watching Will. They were having some sort of silent conversation. Will seemed out of place fully dressed even with his cock making a bulge in his pants. She held out a hand to him. 

"Do you give lessons?" Jem asked. 

"On?" Will said. 

"Oral sex for girls. If she was a man, now would be a good time to blow her but she's got different bits down there," Jem said. 

Tessa started to laugh. Something about that comment was impossibly funny to her. She turned her face into Jem's chest and giggled. 

"Are you laughing at me?" she asked. 

"Different bits?" she giggled. 

He put his hand between her thighs and rubbed hard enough with the heel of his hand to replace her giggles with a little moan. That surprised her. She had always been pretty sure that everyone faked any moaning that happened. He didn't take his hand away. Pressure but no movement. She looked up at him with her mouth a little bit open. 

"I am pretty confident when I say you aren't hiding a cock down here," he said. 

"I'm not," she said. 

"Yet," Will said coming to stand beside her. 

He was fully dressed and his cocky smile made her self conscious of the hiked up skirt and how low cut her bra was and how very very wet she was against Jem's hand. She closed her mouth and looked up at him. He unsnapped the back of the bra and she took it off without looking away from him. 

"You really are a good girl aren't you?" he said. 

"Not a puppy," she said. 

"What?" he said. 

"You call a puppy good girl, don't do it to me," she said. 

Her aunt had always used 'good girl' when she was a kid. Good girls did their homework and good girls helped with the dishes and good girls went to Sunday School instead of spending time with their friends. That stupid phrase had haunted her throughout every relationship she had. Good girls waited until they got married. Good girls didn't do dirty things. Will calling her a good girl while her knees were spread and he leered at her was not something she could tolerate. 

Will tilted his head and grinned at her. He leaned down and kissed her before he said, "Noted."

He straddled the back of the sofa so that he was facing her and Jem and looked over at her. The self consciousness rolled through her again. Once, just once, she'd had a boyfriend in college who had looked her over like that and made a comment about the size of her hips. She braced herself for it here but Will just kissed her shoulder and spoke to Jem, "You've already got a moan out of her and she's soaking wet, you're probably doing better than any high school boyfriend she ever had, isn't he, Angel?"

"Yeah, yeah by a lot," she said. 

"Just keep doing what you're doing," Will said, "One of us will stop you if you fuck it up somehow." 

"Not helpful," Jem said. 

"You're perfect, don't stop," Tessa said. 

She reached up to touch his face and he bent to kiss her again. She meant it. He was perfect. Even if he just held her close and kissed her for hours it would be perfect. He had other plans than just that. He hooked his fingers into her underwear and pulled it off. The skirt was still on and she wanted it gone too but he was already pushing her knees apart again. He knelt down in front of her and she almost stopped breathing before he even touched her. He was looking at her again. 

He started with just his fingers. She'd had fingers there before but never like this. He explored. This wasn't about getting her wet enough for other things. He was just touching her because he could. Will slid a little closer and pulled her against his chest so she had something to lean on. She braced a hand on his knee then let her hand edge a little higher to touch him through his clothes. 

"Don't get distracted," he said. 

Will reached around and felt around between her thighs. Two fingers rubbed as he watched her with his nose touching hers. She tensed as his fingers found what they were looking for and he rubbed hard. She cried out in surprise at the feeling and he caught her with his free hand because she unbalanced herself. He stopped and pulled his hand away. 

"That was easier than I thought it would be. How long has it been since your last orgasm?" he asked. 

"I don't know," she said. 

"So a long time," he said. 

"I don't know if I've ever?" she said. 

"You're not a virgin?" this from Jem. His hand had taken Will's spot but he wasn't using the same force. She looked down at him. She wanted more than he was giving her but didn't ask for it. 

"No," she said. 

"American boys don't know how to fuck do they, Angel?" Will said into her ear. 

"None of the ones I've dated," she said. 

"You deserve better. You'll come for us, over and over," Will said with complete confidence. 

Jem's mouth closed over her clit and he went from too gentle to sucking hard with nothing in between. She tried to press her hips into him without thinking of where she was. Will already had a hold of her and she didn't slip off the edge only because he prevented it. Her head rolled back and she let him hold onto her. Jem held her knees wide and between them she was trapped but she was happy to be there. Jem nuzzled and licked and sucked and she looked down to find him watching her. When she made eye contact he sucked hard again and she let out another soft cry. She shut her eyes and he stopped. 

"Did you like that, Miss Gray?" he asked in an even voice. 

"Don't stop," she said. 

"Tell me if you liked it," he said. 

"I liked it, do it again," she said. 

He smiled and she kept her eyes on him as he sucked her clit back into his mouth and worried at it. The feeling that had pulled the first moan out of her built in her stomach as he licked and sucked. If he was clumsy or bad at it or whatever it was that he had been worried about, she couldn't tell. It was fantastic. 

She murmured and gasped. She hadn't realized that this wasn't the orgasm until the orgasm hit her. The building feeling in her stomach, the warmth and the pressure unfurled and she twisted as her muscles contracted and she let out another cry and pressed her face into Will's neck. It didn't stop until Jem pulled away. 

"Oh," she said. 

She was breathing hard as she pressed her knees together and looked down at him. He was sitting on the floor, grinning at her. She reached for him. Will was close enough but Jem was too far away. He came to her and kissed her. His mouth was wet and some little voice in the back of her head told her this was disgusting but she wanted the kiss more than she cared about what that voice had to say to her. 

"Did you like that?" he asked. 

"Yeah," she said. 

Will stole Jem for a kiss and she let herself relax into the space between them and calm down. She pet Jem's chest and then ran her hand up Will's thigh again. She was a little hazy so her hand wandered a bit on its way there. She wanted to turn around and make him take off the rest of his clothing but they were still kissing so she just leaned back and watched that. She'd never actually watched anyone kiss before outside of a movie screen. Not like this anyways. People didn't use this much tongue when they kissed someone goodbye in a train station and if they did, you didn't watch. It was a shame. It was a good show this close. 

"Bedroom?" Jem asked. 

"Less clothing," Tessa said. 

"That can be done in the bedroom, get up," Will said. 

He took her around the waist and set her up on her feet. She wavered on her heels. She'd forgotten she was wearing shoes. Shoes on and her skirt pushed up around her waist. Her make up was probably smudged as well. 

"I'm a wreck aren't I?" she said. 

"I don't really like girls," Jem said. She blinked and straightened and was surprised that the comment hurt. He didn't give her time to respond to it. He took her face in his hands and said, "And yet, you are one of the hottest things I've ever seen. You're beautiful. You're not a wreck."

"Yet," Will said. 

She shot him a look but Jem just laughed, "He says that because he likes to come on people's faces, that'll wreck your make up." 

"I wasn't going to start there for the poor girl," Will said. 

Tessa stared at him and then at Jem. She was in way over her head. That they were hot and she had a thing for Will had carried her this far. She trusted Jem on some implicit level that she couldn't actually explain and was not based on anything rational. None of that negated she hadn't gone home with two guys she didn't actually know who had every intention of fucking her in ways she probably didn't actually have definitions for. 

"Hey," Jem said in a soft voice. He still held her face between his hands and she met his eyes. She had been staring at nothing for a moment there. Some of how overwhelmed she was must have shown on her face. Those beautiful eyes were concerned when he pulled her attention back. 

"You can call stop anywhere you want," Jem said touching his forehead to hers, "Anywhere. You call stop and it stops. If you need space or a glass of water. If you need five minutes in the bathroom to put your lipstick back on. If it hurts or is too much or you want to leave. Tell us and we'll make it happen. Whatever it is." 

She nodded. 

"I'm not. I don't want to stop," she said. 

"As the snarky bastard here likes to say, yet," Jem said slapping Will's shoulder. "If that changes. Say so. Alright?"

"Ok," she said. 

"What are you freaking out about?" Will asked. 

"I've never had a lot of sex," she said. 

"And it's all been really shitty," he said. 

"Well," she started and he cut her off with a finger on her lips. 

"If that was your first orgasm, all sex that came before was categorically shitty. That's how you define shitty sex. Especially for straight girls. He came, you didn't. Shitty sex," Will said. 

She laughed. 

  
"You are fantastic, you've got nothing to worry about. Trust me, Jem's going to getting off on the fact that he made you scream - you're louder than I thought you'd be, just for the record - he'll still be turned on by that months from now," Will told her. 

"Does that mean you've thought about what I'm like in bed?" she asked. 

"Fuck. Yes. Ever since that conversation where you told me you want to burn down whatever warehouse has the Turner books in it so they can never go to print. I also stare at your ass in the lunch line and I occasionally practice witty conversations starters to use if we ever get trapped in an elevator together," Will said. 

She blushed. She was naked and her body was still thrumming a bit from the orgasm and yet that comment was the thing that made her blush. She glanced at Jem who looked entertained by this little speech more than jealous. The idea of being that secure in a relationship, that listening to your boyfriend talk about his crush on a naked woman without batting an eye, made her a little jealous. She wanted that. 

"I don't think I've ever had someone confess a crush like that before," she said. 

"I am very certain that I am five minutes away from having you on your knees with my cock in your mouth, it's enough to make a person confident," he said and he reached out to pinch her nipple as he said it. He didn't do it hard enough to hurt but it still left her with her mouth open and the blush climbing. 

He grinned at her and turned her around by the shoulders to point her at the bedroom. She shimmied out the skirt and left it on the floor as she went. She really was five minutes away from naked with his cock in her mouth. That was the truth and knowing it made her heart race. Good girls did not want to be on their knees with someone's cock in their mouth. She did though, she really wanted it. 

"Do you want both cocks or help with his?" Jem stage whispered in her ear as Will hit the light. The bedroom was as small as the living room was and they hadn't chosen a small bed. It nearly filled the space. Everything was done in dark blues and whites. It was a comforting space but very masculine. A chair in the corner was covered in laundry but otherwise it was neat. She wanted to ask which one of them was the gay stereotype of an interior designer but Jem's question was so much more interesting than that. 

"Both," she said. 

She turned on Will because getting a look at him naked was suddenly incredibly important to her. He grinned at her. He had a fantastic smile. He had probably been pretty as a little boy but the jaw line and the shoulders and the set of his features were all very masculine. She had gone slow with Jem but she was more practical with Will. She wanted him naked. Now. 

He didn't help and he watched her the whole time. It might have made her self-conscious if he hadn't admitted to literally rehearsing conversations to have with her. His eyes were dark and she had assumed brown until she was looking at at them up close. They were actually blue. She just hadn't had normal light and time to stare before. It was an unusual colour and she stopped after pushing his shirt off to look at them up close. 

"Knees, Angel," he said. 

She considered arguing just to argue. He said it like it was a foregone conclusion, like she would do as he said simply because he said it. She held his gaze for a beat and then knelt. She needed to take off her shoes but she had her hands on Will's belt instead and that was far more important. His cock was bigger than she expected even after feeling it through his pants. She paused as soon as she had pushed enough clothing down for it to swing out towards her. Big and not fully hard. 

"Ok," she said. 

"I know this isn't what you want to hear but you're hot when you're nervous," Will told her. 

She looked up at him and his look was softer than the cocky grin from before. He pushed his fingers into her hair and smoothed it back from her face. She let herself relax into the comfort. He was gentler than she expected. Over and over, he kept surprising her. She expected him to the be the type of guy to grab her head and push her to where he wanted her to be but he was gentler and kinder than that. 

She used her hand to grab the base of his cock and point it towards her face so she could lick the tip. She was as gentle with his cock as he was with his hand on her face. He sighed and she did it again with a little more pressure. She watched him smile at her. She sucked on the tip. He let her go slow. She couldn't possibly take it very far into her mouth so she ran her tongue down either side until it was wet enough for her hand to pump. Once she'd started her hand moving, Will pushed her face away towards Jem. She hadn't taken his clothes off but he was naked. She left one hand stroking slowly and lazily up and down Will and caught his knee to pull him in closer. 

He had another tattoo along his hip, below what had been covered by his pants earlier. She kissed it and said, "Two." 

Then she moved her attention to his cock. He didn't have Will's width but he couldn't have been much shorter. She sucked on him. Something about Jem made her want to take parts of him into her mouth. She wanted to press herself against Will until she could identify him by touch alone but Jem she wanted to taste. She wasn't good enough at this but she tried to ignore that. Get him wet enough to stroke and then suck. It was enough. She switched back to Will while leaving her hand on Jem. 

She could take Jem farther into her mouth but he also wasn't as careful as Will was. He leaned in and pushed past what she could take. She kept having to stop him with a hand on his hip because he had hit the back of her throat and made her cough. 

"Stay still," Will told him.  

She glanced up to see Will's hand on Jem's stomach. She had pulled away from him and she switched back, trusting Will to keep him from pushing against her again. She could feel his thrusts cut off by Will's intervention and it made her bolder. She took him down to that point that made her body protest while Will held him because she could trust that he could not to push past it. 

"Stop," Jem said. 

"Why?" she asked pulling back. 

"Because there are other things I want to do to you," he said. He backed away and sat down on the edge of the bed. He was hard. Beautifully hard.  She wanted to follow him and pull the orgasm out of him just to prove that she could. She stared at him for a moment and then turned back to Will. 

"Are you ready or do you need a minute?" 

For a moment she thought Will was talking to her but Jem answered before she could make sense of the question. 

"I need a second but put her where you want her and I'll just go with it," he said. 

Will pulled her up. Once she was standing, he leaned in and kissed her. She was losing touch with anything and everything outside of this and she pressed in because touch was the only thing that made complete sense to her in that moment. He held her close and kissed her far more softly than she kissed him. She was hurried and desperate and he slowed her down. 

"You're going to lie on your back and Jem's going to do anything he wants to you," Will said. 

She nodded and collapsing onto her back on the mattress was actually a relief. She let her head fall back and her knees spread and as wanton as she knew she looked, she didn't care. It was fingers first but it wasn't until he was above her that she opened her eyes to look at him. She was turned on. She had heard that phrase before but never so completely understood it. There was some dial or switch turned all the way up. She wanted touch like she was suffocating and someone was offering her air. 

"Please," she said. 

"If girls are like this, I don't understand why you stay with me," Jem said. 

"She's like this," Will said. 

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here," she said. 

"Angel, you're barely here, you're past being coherent, I'm surprised you could get that sentence out," Will said. 

"Don't be a jackass," she said. 

"Seems pretty coherent to me," Jem said. 

He lay over her so she felt that laughter where his stomach touched hers and when his head dropped down to press into her shoulder. It made her laugh too. She liked the way the world had narrowed down to sensation. Taste and touch and smell were more important to her than they had ever been before. 

Jem pressed into her while she giggled and luxuriated in the way all her worries had fallen away. Sensation. It had been months since she'd had anyone inside her and wet as she was, she wasn't quite ready for it. She stretched for him and it ached just enough that the feeling made her head spin. She grabbed onto him and gasped and murmured into his shoulder. He fucked her slow but deep. Another thought trilled through her, ruining the calm she had found. 

"Pill, not on the pill," she said. 

"I've got a condom on Angel," he said. He picked up the nickname Will had been using after she'd rejected good girl. She looked up at him. The world refocused as he smiled down at her, "Is that ok, is that enough?"

She nodded and buried her face in his neck. She didn't really want the world to focus. She wanted it go back to being skin and touch and taste and syncopated heartbeats. He moved against her and she let herself melt back into the way his skin felt against hers. She rubbed his back and kissed anything her mouth hit. His ear, his cheek, his neck, he finally grabbed hold of her face to hold her still so he could kiss her mouth.

He flipped her onto her stomach before she reached another orgasm and it was incredibly disorientating to not have him in her arms. He managed to coax her into a position on all fours and Will's cock brushed against her lips. She opened her mouth for him and once he was against her tongue, Jem started moving behind her. He pushed her into Will and she ended up with cock against her gag reflex in a way she couldn't escape short of asking them to stop. She wanted what Jem was doing to her more than she wanted Will out of her mouth so she just closed her eyes and tried to keep up. The knowledge that she could stop them was enough to reassure her. 

Will pulled out of her mouth and dropped down into the bed with her. She protested without words. She wanted him back. She had been just starting to figure out how to make it work when he’d left. She let out an annoyed huff and nothing more. He pet her cheek and ran his hand down her stomach. She hadn't been aware of the position she was in until he did it. Ass up, back arched, knees braced apart.

"Stay right like that, Angel," he said.  

Will’s hand stopped right where Jem was sliding in and out of her. He rubbed and she groaned. He didn’t stop and she felt that same pressure build in her stomach. He was pulling her towards another orgasm and now that she knew what was coming, her body reacted to it differently. Will rubbed her clit hard with one hand and someone, she couldn’t tell which one it was, rubbed her back softly. Jem slammed his hips into her harder while both things happened. She shuddered and gasped and the orgasm shook her. 

Without someone close enough to lean against, she grabbed hold of the duvet and pressed herself into the mattress. Jem let her go. She immediately wanted him back inside even while her muscles trembled and she panted. 

“Are you going to be alright?” Jem asked. 

She nodded. 

"I'm not done with you yet," he said. 

He pushed her back into position but didn’t slide back inside her. There was some shuffling and Will was behind her. He had enough extra width to make her groan but he eased in slowly, a little bit at a time until she had that full feeling back. Too full but then he was moving or maybe her body adjusted to it and she pressed back to meet him.

Jem was in front of her. She opened her mouth for him without any coaxing. He pet her hair while she sucked on the tip of his cock. She pulled the condom off so she could taste him. Will was speeding up and had reached around to rub her clit again. His fingers were gentler and slower than his thrusts. This was to much to concentrate on at once. She lost her train of thought. Jem was there in her mouth but she was slack jawed as Will pushed her forward against him.  

“Suck for me, Tessa,” Jem said. 

Her name pulled her back. She looked up at him. He was smiling but also expectant. Will pushed her forward and cock hit the back of her throat. She wrapped her hand around the base of Jem’s cock and tried to suck on it while Will kept pushing her up to the edge of another orgasm. She wasn’t doing a good job.  There was too much going on to concentrate.

“Stop for a second,” he said. 

She did but it was Will he was talking to. Will pulled out of her and stopped touching her altogether. 

“Not you, you’re going to do it properly and I’m going to come in your mouth,” Jem said. 

Self consciousness rolled through her to have them both watching her do this again. Will slouched down on the bed beside her and reached out to play with her hair and her breasts as she tried very hard to ignore how flushed and how hard he was. Jem kept a hand on her face. It wasn’t controlling, it was more like a reminder. She sucked him down deeper than was comfortable. If she could take having Will slammed against the back of her mouth without stopping, she could do it on purpose. She tried to remember tips girls had whispered at sleepovers and things that had worked before. 

“Much better,” Jem said. 

“She didn’t sign up for you to go all dom on her,” Will said. 

“Shut up and let her concentrate,” Jem said. 

She started to pull back to ask them what they were talking about and Jem pet her cheek with that hand and when she looked up at him, he gave her a little smile. She was going to need a full explanation of why he looked a little smug but it could wait until later. She kept looking up and sucking. Jem watched her. 

“Damn it, Gray,” Will said.  

She darted her eyes to him and he was smiling at her as well. 

“He’s setting you up here, he has really good self control and can keep himself in check for a long time,” Will said to her. She paused and Will shook his head at her, “Don’t stop. I’m going to help a little.” 

He was outside her field of vision and she heard drawers opening and things being moved around. 

“Eyes up, Angel,” Jem said to her tapping her cheek. 

She did what he asked. It should have been annoying. Most of the time when someone gave her an order, regardless of the context, some part of her wanted to argue just because they thought they could boss her around. But not here. Not like this. She didn’t even consider arguing with him. She just looked up and refocused her efforts to pull an orgasm out of him. 

“Fuck,” Jem said and his eyes fell shut.

“Don’t stop now,” Will said before she pulled away. 

She couldn’t see what Will was doing but whatever it was made Jem shift and groan. Will also whispered little tips to her. Jem was breathing harder that calm he had when he had been ordering her around was fraying a little. His eyes kept fluttering shut and he was pressing back against her as she bobbed her head up and down his cock. 

He came in her mouth just like he had told her he would. He was deep in when he did and it filled her mouth. He pulled back once he was done and put a finger under her chin to close her mouth. 

“You’re going to swallow it and lick up anything you missed,” he said to her in a hazy voice. She looked up at him and did it. She swallowed and then lapped up the drip running down his cock. Once it was done he kissed her very softly and sank down onto the bed with her. 

She rolled over onto her back and closed her eyes. Jem flopped down beside her. 

“That was fantastic,” Jem said. 

“I thought she was going to bite you the first time you gave her an order like that,” Will said. 

“What did you do to him?” she asked ignoring the entire question of Jem giving orders and her obeying them.  

“Fingers up his bum,” Will said. 

“You always find the sleaziest ways to say things,” Jem said.

“You’d prefer something more technical? Perhaps I provided anal stimulation?” Will said in a nasal voice.

Tessa laughed and reached out to run her hand over Jem’s chest. She wanted more touch than she was currently getting while they lay shoulder to shoulder. She wanted to get up and burrow her way in between them. 

“Are you going to sub for me too?” Will asked her. He crawled over Jem and propped himself up on all fours over her. He hadn’t finished yet and when she looked down between their bodies, his cock was hard and hanging down over her stomach, looking far too big to possibly fit inside her body even though it had been there before. 

“Sub?” she said. 

“If I start giving orders, will you follow them?” he asked. 

“Depends on what you order me to do,” she said.

“Mmm. I’ll have to think on that, right now, just spread your knees and moan for me,” he said. 

“I will, please stay close,” she whispered into his ear.

She spread her knees and he adjusted where exactly he wanted her. Jem rolled over so he was right against her side, close enough to touch them both. She could see his hand on Will’s shoulder could imagine it as it slid down his back. Will paused to smile at Jem before he pressed into her. She already ached. It had been a long time since her muscles had last done this and she was probably going to hurt tomorrow. Right now though the ache was far closer to pleasure than pain. 

“Come for me before we get started,” Will said. 

He thrust into her slowly and put his hand between them to rub hard. She did exactly as he asked. Her muscles contracted and she squirmed as he started to go harder. He stayed close so that she could bury her face against his chest and hold onto his shoulders as he moved against her. She wasn’t used to feeling small but Will made her feel little just by the way he wrapped himself around her. 

Jem, she thought it might be Jem, was petting her hair back from her face and whispering in her ear. She had lost the ability to remember what words meant. Will slid in and out of her in long strokes. All the way out. All the way in. All the way in made her body protest in what would have been pain if she wasn’t lost to arousal. All the way out was frustrating as hell. 

She was pleading. She didn’t know what she wanted exactly. 

Someone put fingers in her mouth and she sucked on them. Her hands grabbed hold of blankets and twisted tight in the hair at the base of someone’s neck. She couldn’t keep who was who straight. Another hand between her body and Will’s pulled her to another orgasm while he didn’t stop thrusting. She pressed as much of herself against him as she could and he pulled another orgasm out of her that she was pretty sure was just the friction of his body against hers. 

He came while buried inside her. She was looking up when she saw the orgasm on his face. He collapsed over her, inside her, against her. She was trapped by him as they both shuddered. 

Will rolled away from her and then rolled back to kiss her.

She lay on her back between them until she caught her breath. 

"Can we keep her?" Will asked. 

"Not a puppy," she said again. 

Jem laughed and reached over her to shove Will in the shoulder. They were both laughing and that set her off as well. Jem rolled up on his elbow to see over her and she turned into him and pressed her face against his neck. He hugged her with one arm. 

"I just need to rest a minute," she said. 

"Take all the time you need, Beautiful," Jem said. 

She didn't mean to fall asleep but no one woke her. 


	3. Saturday Mornings with Company

Jem woke up to the sound of the shower running. He glanced over at Will who was still asleep and sprawled across more than half of the bed and it took him a moment to remember that there was another person in the apartment. He sat up and ran his fingers through his hair a few times. He'd been too distracted and too turned on to think about it last night but now he was wondering how messy the front room of their tiny flat was and if she had noticed that they hadn't washed the shower in weeks. 

He looked around the room, trying to decide if there was anything that could be salvaged. It wasn’t as bad as he had thought, the laundry needed done but it had been piled in the hamper. Will had left tea cups piled up on top of his tottering tower of library books. Jem had left a sweater on top of the dresser and the alarm clock was flashing at them because they hadn't bothered to reset it after a power outage nearly a week before. Messy but not embarrassing.

"Thoughts on last night?" 

Jem looked down, Will had turned his head when he’d felt the bed move but he hadn’t gotten up. He was pushing his messy curls back from his face and blinking away the sleep as he gave Jem a smile. He was naked and the blanket had slipped down when Jem had moved so it only covered one of Will's legs and left everthing else bare. Jem’s heart stuttered and he lay back down on top of Will and kissed him.

“Tell me the truth,” Will said into his mouth before Jem had gotten as much from the kiss as he had wanted. He pulled back and looked down at Will who raised his eyebrows and smiled with his lips just far enough apart to distract Jem. 

"I loved it more than I thought I would. I agreed to it because you wanted it, not because I did. I didn't expect to enjoy it that much. She's beautiful," Jem said. 

"I know," Will said, "I wasn't expecting her to be a perfect sub though, that's a little like getting everything you asked for at Christmas and then finding out someone got you a pony too." 

"I think she told you to fuck off three times," Jem said. 

"I dated this guy who would not set limits and never once used the fucking safe word. It was terrifying. I am pretty sure I could have broken his arm and he wouldn't have stopped me before, during or after. I couldn't just enjoy the sex and he didn't like just regular sex and the whole relationship didn't last long because I was constantly afraid that I was going to hurt him because he just wouldn't tell me one way or the other. She sets boundaries without even needing asked," Will said. 

"I hadn't thought of it like that. You get off on being told to fuck off, interesting," Jem said. 

A shrug that was as much an admittance as a written confession ever could be before he added, “There's a bit of a thrill in knowing if she's gagging on your cock and not stopping then she's enjoying herself.”

Jem laughed.

“You, on the other hand,” Will continued, “Seem to gag on my cock out of spite which is an entirely different kind of enjoyable.”

“I’m very fond of your cock, I just tend to believe there are better places for it to be than halfway down my throat,” Jem said. 

“Do you hate it?” Will asked carefully.

“No,” Jem said pulling him closer to kiss. He spoke into Will’s mouth as he said, “I love watching you fall apart when it’s my mouth or my hand or really anything that’s pushed you to orgasm. I tolerate when you use my mouth as a warm up because I trust that you’ll do something better next.”

Will kissed him again and for a little while or maybe a long while, they lost track of time. Jem’s dick was just starting to get hard and he wanted to finish what they had started but Will was already pulling out of his arms and getting up. Jem groaned and struggled up to sit on the edge of the bed. 

“Do you want her to stay?” Will asked. 

“I was thinking of making omelettes, do you think she’s the kind of person who love mushrooms or hates them?” Jem said by way of response. 

“I hate mushrooms enough for all of us, your obsession with the slimy little fungus balls is an abomination.”

“Broccoli and cheese then, everyone likes broccoli.”

“I don't think that's true but before you moved in, I ate mostly those styrofoam cups of noodles.”

“I know, it was disgusting.”

Jem got up and pulled on the bare minimum of clothing and headed for the kitchen. Once Will was dressed, Jem banished him to go buy coffee from a cafe down the street because they were out. He pulled out ingredients and started mixing. She was still in the shower. The stereotype about women using all the hot water evidently had at least a little basis in fact. 

“Good morning.”

She startled him when she appeared behind him. He hadn’t heard the water shut off. She had raided the dresser and wore a pair of track pants that pooled around her ankles and one of Will’s soccer jerseys that fell a little past her wrists. With her hair still wet and braided, she was the picture of someone’s little sister. He hadn’t thought of her as innocent the night before but dressed like this, with the make up all washed off, she looked like the type of person who refused to kiss on the first date.   
   
She came to stand beside him. He held up a piece of the orange he was peeling and she ate it out of his fingers with a little smile. Jem grinned at her and when she reached for another piece he grabbed her wrist and shook his head. She held his eyes and when he let go of her hand she dropped it back down and raised her chin in a silent question or maybe it was a challenge or he could imagine it was an offer. He wasn’t sure which but it didn’t really matter. He held out another piece for her and she took it out of his hand. 

"Anything you eat today, is happening like this," he said holding up another piece and pulling it back when she leaned in. 

"Why?" she asked. 

"Because it's almost painfully hot to watch you eat out of my hand," he said. 

"Are you going to make me beg?" she asked. 

"Yes, but not for food," he said. 

She blushed and looked down. He put a hand on her chin and turned her face back to his to kiss her. She tasted like oranges and when she kissed him back a moment after he started it, she stepped right in so her body pressed against his. He picked her up and spun her around so he could balance her on the empty counter top behind them. He pushed her knees apart and stepped in between them and she bent her head down to kiss him. When he pulled back, he held her face between his hands and kept her close. Not as innocent as she looked and that was enough to push his heart rate up.

"Will accused you of going all dom on me last night, explain that," she said. 

"I like being in control," he said. 

"So you want me to follow orders?" she asked. 

"Among other things," he said. 

"Like?" 

"I'd kind of like to to hold you down and make you wait until you're half crazy. Will though is the type of guy who'll pull one more orgasm out of you once you're already hazy and spent."

"And you do this to each other?"

"Yeah, sometimes." 

Jem heard the door and Tessa straightened, looking towards the sound even though there was a wall in the way. He hadn’t noticed how she was leaning into him until she pulled back. She had been curving her whole body into him and now she was separate and a little tense. He ran his fingers up her arm and she looked back at him, softening again. 

“Just Will, he’s bringing coffee,” Jem said. 

Will arrived in the kitchen as promised and leaned against the wall. He was twice as dressed as they were, jeans and a leather jacket a scarf over a t-shirt that was a touch too tight. Tessa looked him over with wide eyes. Whatever she'd been about to say fell away as her eyes roamed. Jem took his own moment to stare. Seeing Will through her eyes was like seeing him all over again. He was still familiar but Jem didn't usually take time to stare at him anymore and he made a mental note to do it more often.

"What are we talking about?" he asked coming to leaned in against the counter beside them and put the tray of carry out cups down beside Tessa’s spread knee as though he was unaware of the position.

Tessa's hand fluttered and then fell back to Jem's shoulder. He leaned in and whispered in her ear, "Touch him," before saying in a more normal volume, "Comparing kinks." 

Her hand fluttered again before finding Will's chest and Will smiled at her like she was something to eat. She unzipped his jacket for him and let her fingers trail down his chest to his stomach. She looked so much more innocent like this and her moments of hesitation before she committed to a touch or a kiss or to saying something dirty were nudging up his body temperature. Her behaviour hadn’t changed but without the trappings of tight skirts and eyeliner, it looked different in a way Jem hadn’t expected.  

"I know yours and I'm pretty sure that hers are oral fixation, multiple orgasms and being held down," Will said. 

"Are they?" she asked pulling her hand back and frowning. 

"Aren't they?" Will asked, "You sucked on anything that was put in your mouth and then you swallowed it. You obviously liked the multiple orgasms and you were perfectly comfortable being held down and fucked hard." 

"I like being held close, that's not the same thing as being held down," she said. 

"I wasn’t cuddling, Miss Gray, I was holding you down and fucking you hard, if you didn’t like it, now would be a good time to tell me because I am full of fantasies about doing it again," Will said. 

There was a long hesitation in which she stayed close to Jem but kept her eyes on Will. Not scared, she was weighing options perhaps. Jem was prepared to protect her if she showed even a hint of being scared and that realization surprised him. The moment stretched but she didn't tense again.

"Yeah, ok, I liked it," she said with a shrug like it didn’t matter to her and Will’s smile spread just a little farther.

Jem leaned in to whisper in her ear again but he pitched his voice loud enough for Will to hear, "Get down on your knees and get him hard, I'll finish making breakfast." 

She looked at him for a moment as though she was going to argue. They had been romantic and cuddly so far but she didn't make demands for vanilla. Instead she slid closer to Jem and wrapped her hand around his cock through the soft fabric of the pajamas he wore. Jem gasped and she let go and dropped to the floor. 

She left him and padded towards Will on bare feet just peaking out of those too long trousers. Jem was still open mouthed as he stared after her. She knelt down and did as she had been told. 

She carefully and slowly opened Will’s pants and pushed them down. He kicked them away and shrugged out of the coat without looking away from her. Will finally looked up at Jem as she gently cupped his balls and then started stroking his cock. 

Jem had never had the privilege of watching Will’s mouth fall open or his fingers flex from this far away. His movements were all familiar but watching him do it as he was touched by someone else was something Jem had never really considered. 

"Mouth, Angel, not hands," Jem said. 

He came up behind her and pulled her wrists back behind her back and gathered them in one hand. If she had struggled, she could have easily pulled out of that hold but she didn't. She let him hold her as she tilted her head far enough back to look up at him with an expression somewhere between arousal and surprise on her face. Jem raised his eyebrows at Will who unwound the scarf he’d worn out and handed it to him.

Jem tied her hands behind her back and Will leaned down to kiss her as he did it. She shifted and when he stepped back she tested the tie. Her face was flushed and her eyes wide and just a touch alarmed.

“Yes or no?” Will asked. 

“You might have warned me that you like to tie people up,” she said. 

“Tessa?” 

An embarrassed laugh, “Yes, Will?”

“I really do like to tie people up.” 

“That isn’t a warning. I’m already tied up.”

“I noticed, I’m considering coming on your face just looking at you like this.” 

Jem leaned back into the conversation. He caught the back of Tessa’s  but didn’t force her closer to Will. The conversation from when they were still in bed echoed loud in his ears. He wanted her to lead it. He wanted her to want it more than he wanted her to actually do it. 

"Don't let him come, just get him hard," Jem said stroking the back of her neck with gentle fingers. 

"Really?" Will asked. 

"Her and I are going to fuck you this morning, I want you to last through it," Jem said. 

"Ok, yeah, that sounds good, this is so much better than Christmas," Will said.

“You say that now,” Jem said. 

Tessa hesitated and Jem raised his eyebrows when she met his eyes. It was a clear question or at least he hoped it was a clear question. She held his gaze a moment too long, long enough to make him doubt then she smiled and leaned forward to lick Will’s barely hard cock. He was going to fight getting hard with everything he had just to be difficult. They both knew it but no one warned her.

Will tried very hard to maintain normal conversation while she licked and sucked and let her cheek drag along his cock. His attention was on Tessa and Jem kept asking him questions that couldn’t quite pull his attention away. She was clumsy but somehow the fact that she was slow and careful about her clumsiness made it hotter. 

“Is that as good as it looks?” Jem asked. 

He had just finished putting food on plates and he kissed Will and pet her hair. When she paused he kept his hand there as enough of an order to make her go back to sucking. She didn’t seem to take offense but he dropped his hand a moment later to be sure he wasn’t forcing the issue. Her eyes cut to him and he played with her hair again as she held his gaze and kept sucking on Will’s now hard cock. 

“Better,” Will said. 

“Too bad she’s going to stop there. Come here, Angel,” Jem said. 

He didn’t untie Tessa as she sat back and tilted her head up at him with her mouth still a little bit open. He helped her up then picked her up so he could sit her on the counter top with her knees a little apart, her lips a bit swollen from the blow job and her eyes wide in surprise. She hadn’t been expecting to be manhandled like that. 

“Do I get a kiss?” she asked and Jem immediately did as he was asked, leaning in to press his lips to hers and wait for her to be the one to open her mouth to me. 

They ate standing around in the kitchen without really deciding on it. Jem’s original plan to sit like civilized people around the little table went out the window when Will realized Tessa’s hands were still tied and held out a piece of toast to her. Her eyes cut to Jem and he grinned at her. 

“You two are a little unsettling,” she said. 

“Why?” Will asked. 

“Because I did the same thing to her about two minutes before you got home,” Jem said. 

“It’s just because we’re so nice, you’ll be hungry if you don’t eat,” Will said. 

Tessa laughed and took the food from his fingers and held eye contact while she chewed. Stopping her to go sit down properly felt like a terrible idea so they just ate like that. Except for being tied and taking food out of their fingers like a pet, she was surprisingly normal. She settled down into conversation easily in spite of her bound hands. 

Now that she had relaxed, her confidence was complete and unshakable. She laughed and leaned her shoulder against Will or slid her foot up the inside of Jem’s thigh and made requests about what she wanted to be fed. She did not ask to be untied until she wanted the coffee. 

“I am not going to drink it out of a straw, give me my hands back before it gets cold,” she said. 

She didn’t get up and she didn’t stop asking for food instead of taking it but now she held a coffee cup in one hand while her other wandered. She liked to touch hair, carding her fingers through the strands at the back of Jem’s neck or curling Will’s around her fingers until she’d wrapped it into a curl in the middle of his forehead that made him make faces at her. 

"It's like that classic Clark Kent super man hair," she said. 

"Are you comparing me to the man of steel?" Will asked with his eyebrows wiggling. 

"Only your hair," she said tugging on the curl she'd twisted around her finger. 

"I'd make a good superhero, fighting the forces of evil, wooing beautiful people, flying, I'd be good at flying," Will said. 

"If you figure out how to fly, call me," she said. 

Will held out a forkful of her eggs and she ate it without letting go of his hair. She was still confident, still gentle, still willing to do as she was asked even as she teased him.

“Is your coffee done?” Jem finally asked her when he couldn’t take the waiting any more. 

She nodded. 

“Then go back to bed,” he said pointing in the vague direction of the bedroom. She laughed at him and hopped down off the counter. 

“Are you coming?” she asked hooking her fingers into the waistband of his pants. 

“Oh, he will be,” Will said. 

She laughed and Will scooped her up. She yelped as he threw her over his shoulder and left the room. She held onto Jem’s pants a moment too long and he stumbled as he was yanked forward after them. She was still laughing as she pulled herself up in Will’s hold to look at him. He followed them into the bedroom. 

Will dumped her on the bed and she sat up, still laughing. 

"Hands and knees," Jem said coming up behind Will and wrapping his arms around his waist. Will leaned back into the touch and tilted his head so that Jem could nuzzle his neck a little.  

"Now you're ordering me around too?" Will said with a grin.

"Do as you're told," Jem said pulling back from him. 

“Fine, but it had better be worth it because I have been hard since that little escapade with her mouth in the kitchen and I’m about to explode or maybe die, you don't want me to die, do you?” Will said. 

“You’ll like this, get up,” Jem said pushing him towards the bed. 

Jem grabbed Tessa's hand and pulled her close so she sat on the edge of the bed near him. She leaned in a little so her shoulder touched Will's hip as he got up into the position he had been ordered to be in. Her hands wandered over him. They ran up his thigh and across his back and then down to his stomach and up to his chest. Will was quiet for once in his life. 

"Come here," Jem said and pulled Tessa in closer to him. She sat on his lap and giggled as Jem reached around her to move Will's knees a little wider. She leaned back against his chest and watched. 

"You're a little into this," he said. 

"He's so pushy and demanding, I like watching him do what you say," Tessa said. 

"Hey," Will started to sit up on his knees and argue but Jem slapped him on the arse hard enough to make a crack of sound that made Tessa jump and Will gasp. 

"Stay where you're put," Jem said. 

"He's showing off for you," Will said in a tight voice. 

"Did that hurt?" she asked rather than responding to the comment. She touched the reddening patch of skin as Will made a noncommittal noise. Jem pressed her hand down over the mark and rubbed, using her hand as the only point of contact. 

"Yeah," Jem whispered in her ear and she shifted to look at him as he continued in a low voice that he knew Will could hear too, "He won't admit it though. Not that it hurt nor that he liked it. He's got a safe word to use if it hurts too much or he just needs a break or whatever. If he isn't using it, he's fine." 

"You're alright?" she asked again, looking at Will. 

"Yeah, Angel, I'm good," Will said. 

She leaned in close and pressed a kiss to the red patch and Will shifted but didn't say anything. She was gentle and Will was right, Jem was going to be rough just because he had an audience. He lay his hand over hers again and used her hand to touch Will. He stroked down Will's thighs and his lower back and squeezed one of his butt cheeks. Tessa stayed cuddled in his lap as he did it. 

"Here you're doing this," he said to her. 

He put lube on her fingers and put them in place to rub at Will's opening. Will tilted his hips and pushed back into her touch. She rubbed little circles around his asshole but it took Jem putting her in position and pushing before she slid inside. Will groaned a little and she paused. 

"All the way, he can take so much more than those two fingers," Jem said. 

She watched Jem as she pushed her fingers the rest of the way in. He held her wrist and pulled her back out and then pushed her back in. She took the hint immediately, stroking in and out so slowly that it had to be making Will crazy. He still kept quiet. Jem didn't offer any more hints, he just held her and kept his chin on her shoulder and watched as she experimented with harder and softer or faster and slower. Will murmured and shifted but didn't argue or demand. He just stayed in position and let her play with him. 

"Do you want to know what we're going to do next?" Jem whispered in her ear. 

"Tell me," she said. 

"We're going to figure out a position where he," Jem reached down between Will's legs and played with his straining cock as he spoke, "Can be inside you and I can be inside him and we're going to see if we can actually make him lose his mind." 

"Fuck," Will said. 

"Is that a good fuck or a bad one?" Tessa asked him. 

"Good, very good, come here," he said. 

He didn't actually get up, he just groped behind him and Tessa held out a hand to him. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her up to the bed. It wasn't graceful but they were both laughing as it happened. He got her into position on her back below him and before he even started to pull her clothing off, he kissed her. She looped her arms up around his neck and Will flattened his body against hers so she was held tight between the mattress and his weight. Jem used his own fingers to push more lube into Will and loosen him up a little more. He wasn’t going to be gentle but that didn’t mean he wanted it to hurt. 

"Clothes off, Angel," Will said without actually pulling back from the kiss. She arched her back and he helped her pull off the borrowed track pants and the football jersey she had been wearing. Jem was still behind Will, pulling his own clothing off and reaching around Will to roll a condom on so that the two of them didn't need to stop. Will squirmed against him but didn't pause what he was doing to Tessa. 

He pinned her down. Grabbed her wrists in one hand and held them above her head. He used his other hand to pull one of her thighs up and Jem grabbed her ankle, pulling it farther so her leg was wrapped around Will's waist. She adjusted to the position then gasped as Will sank into her. She had to be as hot and wet as he was hard but she hadn't had nearly as much foreplay and her body tensed a bit before she settled. 

"Stay still," Jem said once Will was inside her. He pushed down on Will's hips to keep him in place so that he could get into position as well. He started slow and shallow. Will pushed back into the penetration and slipped out of Tessa making her shift and protest. 

"I meant it, stay still," Jem said. 

It took a little bit more experimenting to get Tessa's hips in the right place and to convince Will to stay still enough for it to work. Will let go of Tessa's hands and instead wrapped himself around her and pressed his face into her neck and just held on. Jem didn't let go of his hips because every time he did, Will moved and the position stopped working again. He held on tight and leaned into Will so that his body weight and every thrust pushed Will down against and into Tessa. 

Will groaned as Jem pushed deeper and finally started to relax into it. Jem kept one hand on his lower back to keep him in place and rubbed up his spine to his shoulders as he relaxed more and more. He wasn't quiet. He moaned as Jem pulled back and gasped as he pushed forward and muttered things into Tessa's ear that Jem couldn't hear at all. 

"Faster?" Jem asked. 

"Mm," was all Will said. 

"Please," Tessa said.

She was holding onto Will, her fingers weaving through his hair and her leg still wrapped around his waist but she held out one hand to Jem. He laced his fingers with hers and kissed the back of her hand before he picked up speed and started to slam Will down into her body. Will finally let go entirely and Jem felt the last bits of resistance fall away as sensation took over. 

Tessa's fingers tightened on Jem's and Will kissed her neck and shoulder. Jem was the only one with any range of movement and he went hard against Will which in turn pushed Will harder into her. She murmured and held on. 

Will didn't last long. He came hard and collapsed. Tessa looped her arms around him a little tighter, immediately becoming the comforting one. Will was still holding her and his face was pressed into her neck. Jem thrust into him a few more times just to make him groan and twist but didn't keep going. He was still hard but he pulled out and flopped down in the bed beside them to stroke his fingers through Will's hair and steal kisses from anyone who was close enough.

"That might have been the best thing that’s ever happened to me in this room,” Will said in a hazy voice, “You need to try being in the middle.”

“Me or her?” 

“Yeah,” Will said. 

Jem laughed. “Move, she hasn’t come and neither have I.” 

“Don’t let her,” Will said. 

“What?” Tessa said. 

“Make her wait for it, too many orgasms last night, she’s spoiled,” Will said. 

“We’re a little early in this relationship for orgasm denial,” Jem said. 

“Never too early for begging,” Will said. 

Tessa was cuddled into Will's shoulder and pressed her face in closer when she laughed. He was still holding onto her. He pulled her face around for a kiss that was softer and gentler than the conversation implied. 

Will finally rolled back but not far. He left one arm curled around behind her and reached the other for Jem. Will’s hand caught Jem’s hip and his thumb stroked along the lines of muscle and bone in a very familiar and intimate way that brought crashing home the fact that neither of them really knew this girl.

Will touched him like this all the time. Light fingers on his hips and stomach was comforting and a little teasing and they weren’t alone. They had always been alone. It was a little thing for private moments and he wasn’t sure this counted as a private moment.  

Tessa reached up and touched his shoulder in the same moment that he started to panic. He looked at her and even though she was new and different, she wasn’t a stranger, not anymore. He pushed past his moment of disorientation and leaned down over her. Will was still stroking his hip and she laced her fingers through his and she wasn’t really a stranger. 

He leaned her back, pinning her the way Will had at the start. She arched into the hold, pushing against it a bit and smiling. Testing, not struggling. He held her tighter. 

“Can you handle orgasm denial?” he asked. 

“All the sex I’ve had before this was just ineffective teasing,” she said in a near perfect imitation of Will right down to the accent and a tilted eyebrow and Will cackled at it. Jem held her a little tighter and she smiled at him.

“This isn’t going to be ineffective, it’s going to be intentionally unsatisfying,” Jem said. 

“Try me,” she said. 

“I told you I was going to make you beg,” Jem said. 

“I never doubted that,” she told him. 

He slid into her at that. Her body was so different from Will’s and going from one to the other made his head spin. She was gentler and yielded immediately. Hips arched into position rather than arguing with him, her skin was silken and the body underneath it was more rounded than Will’s. He was angles and edges fitted together and she was something smoother and softer and drawn in more generous strokes. 

She pressed up into him and he realized he was not going to be able to do this. 

She was close and so was he and he didn’t know her body or her cues well enough.  He didn’t know enough about women in general or this particular person in particular to stop her orgasm. He could do it to Will and he liked the idea of doing it to her but they were both to close to the edge to play that game. 

“Later,” he said, “I need you too much to do that to you right now.” 

“Please,” she said but he couldn’t tell if it was in response to his comment or his stillness or something else entirely. 

He started to move. He was far gentler than he had been when Will had been between them. He needed it to be gentle and slow if he was going to be able to categorize the details of her body and her building orgasm. She squirmed and pulled on his hands where they were still locked around her wrists but didn’t ask or demand. He trusted her to tell him if he crossed some line. She murmured and gasped and muttered his name.  

Will’s hands wandered over them. His palm against Jem’s stomach, his fingers brushing along Tessa’s jaw and making her turn into him, a hand on her breast, a hand on his ass, Will was wrapped up in them and Jem went slower for it. He was close and slowing meant fighting every inch of desire pounding the word almost and harder through his veins. He slowed anyways. 

“Do you want her to come or not?” Will asked. 

“I want her to scream,” Jem admitted. 

“Can I help?” Will asked. 

Jem looked at him and it distracted him enough that he felt Tessa squirm against his sudden stillness. She didn’t argue about them talking about her like she wasn’t there, she pressed her body up into Jem and breathed the word please into his ear again. 

“Yeah,” Jem said. 

Her face was against his neck, kissing and sucking on the skin so hard that her teeth grazed him and he knew he was probably going to have marks up and down his throat. He didn’t stop her. He was probably holding her wrists tight enough to leave marks there as well. 

Will’s hand slid between them and Jem looked at her. He regathered her hands in one of his so he had a hand free to turn her face up to his. Her cheek was hot under his hand and she was panting through an open mouth. She was flushed and her eyes fluttered at each stroke, she was on the brink and neither of them needed Will’s help but when his hand found the right place, her eyes squeezed shut and she attempted to twist her body. 

Just the touch was enough to fire off the start of an orgasm. Jem kept her face in place, her hands in place, he kept stroking into her as she started to shudder. She gasped and Jem felt Will’s hand shift between their bodies so that he could rub her harder. She groaned and twisted and as the orgasm crested, she started to cry out something he imagined was his name but he smothered with a kiss because they still had goddamn neighbours to worry about and were making enough noise already. 

They kept her at the brink of the orgasm longer than she could take, she was sweating and struggling as her back arched and her hips twisted but she was too tightly held to get away. 

Her body shuddered around Jem and that finally pushed him past his own edge. He collapsed into her, orgasm rippling out through his limbs. He made sure that when he lost himself, he fell towards Will so that as he came back down, he was between them. He was still curled around her. She lay splayed on her back below him and Will immediately curled himself up behind Jem’s body so they were all wrapped around each other. 

“Your definition of denial is different than mine,” she said. 

“Later. Later, I’ll fuck you to the edge and leave you there,” Jem said. 

“Promises,” she said. 

“We’ve got all day, and so many more things to do to you,” Will said. 


	4. Wednesday in the Park

### Wednesday

He showed up beside her desk and dropped down into the chair where he had sat when they'd first met. This time he wasn't bearing a terrible manuscript for her to read and write advertising copy for. It was just him and two cups of coffee. She blinked at him as he put one down and pushed it towards her. He even looked good under office fluorescent lights. How did he managed that? He smiled. It was a great smile. She didn’t return it. She couldn’t remember how to make her face move.

"Hello," she said.

"Hi."

"How are you?"

"Great. You?"

She was full of memories she did not want to be having in the middle of cubicle hell where anyone could walk by and it was making her stomach twist and her thoughts run in all directions at once. Will was part of some impossible fantasy night that did not belong anywhere near spread sheets and documents marked up with highlighter and red pen. He did not fit in her life. Not in the every day part of her life. He was part of something too unnerving and intense and fresh to even make sense yet. She couldn't handle him sitting beside her desk, smiling like he belonged there.

"I'm fine," she said.

"I want to ask you to dinner,” he said.

She looked up at him again.

That was not what she had expected. She wasn't sure what she had expected. Maybe she hadn't ever expected to see him again. Hadn't he told her that? That it was a one-time thing, a momentary madness, a bad idea that was supposed to pass on. They had both been so nice right up to the moment that Jem had walked her to the bus stop so she could go back to her real life wearing a borrowed t-shirt thrown over her skirt.

Nice. Incredible.

But separate.

There was that and there was real life and the gulf between them was the size of an ocean.

Her roommate had been badgering her about it ever since. Where did she get the shirt? Where had she been? Who had seen been with? She didn’t have to be such a prude about it. What was his name? It was constant or it just felt constant. Maybe that was why she hated the idea of the two worlds touching. Her roommate knowing she'd been somewhere with someone was bad enough. The idea of the guy with the bad cologne across the aisle asking the same kinds of questions was intolerable.

"I work here," she said.

His smile faltered and vanished.

He held her gaze for a long confused moment before he nodded as though she had said something else.

"I'm sorry," Will said. "I won't bother you again."

He left the coffee but he got up and left without another word, leaving her to stare at the chair that he had abandoned with her thoughts in an even worse knot. It was a relief to be left alone with her thoughts again but she really hadn’t meant for him to look so upset.

### That Evening

"Friday or Saturday?" Jem asked.

"Nope," Will said tossing himself down on the sofa and putting his feet up beside a pile of books that he probably needed to take back to the library. He stared at them and not at Jem as he rolled his shoulders and undid buttons on his shirt to make it less insufferable. He hadn’t worn a tie but that didn’t make the button down as comfortable as he wanted it to be. He kind of wanted to burn all his office clothes and just walk away from that life. Maybe he could become a hermit in a mountain cave or something.

"What does nope mean in this context?"

"Her exact words were, "I work here," but it was said with this expression that made me think I'd run over her dog."

"She so didn't call on purpose."

"Seems like it."

"You ok?"

"Yeah."

Jem didn't answer that and Will sighed.

He was fine. He wasn't happy but he was fine. He had been looking forward to taking her out. He had been so sure of it. Of course, she was going to say yes. And then she hadn’t. That was what was bothering him. At least that was what he was willing to admit was bothering him. She had been smiles and affection all weekend. She had gotten nervous but had easily swung around to laughing and shoving and arguing. He had been so sure that she was happy. Maybe she had been happy. One happy night did not mean she ever wanted to do it again or ever see either of them again.

But he'd remembered the title to the book he had wanted to recommend to her and she had snuggled into Jem's shoulder when they watched movies and she had fit. The sex had been fantastic too. The sex was enough to make him want her to say yes but the rest of it was why it had hurt when she had said no.

"Did she give you a reason?" Jem asked.

"You don't ask someone looking at you like you're a home invader what their reasons are for asking you to leave, you just leave," Will said.

"She was that upset?"

"She barely made eye contact."

“Hm,” Jem said.

“Yeah.”

Will couldn’t think of anything else to say and Jem didn’t push the conversation.

### Three Weeks Later, on a Thursday

"There's a place on the corner that does really good sandwiches, do you want one?"

Will looked up at the sound of the voice.

Tessa was standing in his office door with her hair pulled back in a bun and a blouse and skirt combination that made her look like a recurring librarian fantasy he'd had when he had been in high school. Her hair wasn't quite severe enough for the role and she didn't have glasses and she wore soft pink lipstick that was far too cute but still. It was uncanny. He'd probably think she was hot if she was wearing a paper sack and a pair of ancient ugg boots. That was a bad thought process. Do not think of all the things she would look sexy wearing.

Coworker.

Not sexy librarian fantasy.

Coworker who had told him to get lost the last time they’d talked.

"Do you want company?" he asked.

"That would be great but I can also just pick you up something if you want," she said.

"No, please, take me with you. Turner is back on my desk for line edits. I would love a sandwich and some fresh air," he said. _I would love to spend some time with you because I've been spending entirely too much time watching you from a distance and trying not to let Jem know that I'm pining._ But that second part was better left unsaid.

"Compared to line editing the man who can't used turgid correctly, I think being thrown in the Thames would be preferable," Tessa said.

"He uses so many words that he obviously doesn't understand! He refuses to change any of them. I'm not a copy editor. I only got it because the real copy editors want to stab the man," Will said. He already had his coat in hand and was headed towards her. She gave him a smile that wasn't quite the one he remembered from the unforgettable weekend but was close enough to make him think very dirty thoughts.

"What is your actual job?" she asked as they started toward the elevator.

"Assistant to Acquisitions. Not to any one person in Acquisitions. This house is about five years from going under and there's no way they've got enough resources to hire assistants for all the editors in acquisitions so I basically provide slave labour to a cadre of cranky old men who willingly paid Turner money for the right to edit his asshole memoir dressed up as fiction," Will said.

That got a laugh out of her. The rest of the way to the street Will rambled about his job and she gave him enough smiles and laughter to make him think she wasn’t completely bored to death. She was pretty on a normal day but when she laughed, she was something else entirely. He waited until they were halfway up the block, away from the office and the likelihood that anyone would notice them before he offered her his hand.

She looked at it and he held the smile in place even as his heart sank. No handholding because this wasn’t flirting. Just an invite to lunch, an attempt to be friendly, that was all, nothing else. Ok. He could deal with that. Sure. He started to let his hand drop and she reached out and grabbed it before he could pull away.

He gave her a grin and laced their fingers together.

He was not playing it cool.

If anyone asked, he was going to claim that he was being direct and honest. If you want to hold hands, then you have to put it on the table. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It was nothing more than an offer. He had a story all worked out to convince someone else that he was completely reasonable. Truthfully, he was just so damn happy that she was smiling at him that he was going to embarrass himself.

"I didn't mean to be so rude that day when you came by my office," she said.

"I didn't mean to overstep."

"You didn't. You were perfectly nice. My roommate had been badgering me about where I'd been and who I'd been with and I was just terrified of it all spilling over onto work too. It's the kind of gossip that I just couldn't deal with being a part of. Not with those people."

"Did that change?"

"No one knows anything we don't tell them. I go for lunch with Sophie from design and it’s not a scandal. This is just lunch. My roommate has her own issues and none of them are my problem."

"True."

"I missed you," she added more quietly.

"Don't lie, you missed Jem and you're a little bit disappointed that I'm a part of the package deal,” he leaned in and elbowed her a bit. Direct and honest. She shoved him back with a laugh so he did it again. Direct and honest and desperate for a little bit of physical affection from her. He poked her again and said, “You are!”

"No!" she said in mock affront, her hand coming up to her chest like she was an offended ninety year old grandmother. Cute. Fucking cute.

"Lies,” Will accused with another nudge that let him bump his body against hers.

"Fine, I miss him more than you."

"I thought so. God, I could barely survive the four days I did in Sheffield for an industry conference without him let alone weeks. Are you doing alright? Do you need to see a doctor?”

She laughed again and steered him – steered him by leaning her shoulder into his to push him in the direction she wanted him to go – towards a small café that was barely wide enough to allow for a single table out front. The table was already occupied and there was a line inside which meant that they weren’t going to be able to sit and talk and be late back to their desks which was what Will really wanted. Late to his desk, a good hour of time listening to her talk and laugh. If he couldn’t have that, maybe there were other options.

"Can I invite you to dinner again?" he asked.

“Ok,” she said.

“There’s this Italian place two streets over or maybe Jem’s favourite Indian place near the apartment?” Will said. Then they were talking about restaurants and she was laughing and his hand was still linked with hers. She didn’t let go as she ordered and she played with his fingers as they waited and he was lost. Utterly lost. He would have done anything she wanted.

What she wanted was an invite to dinner and an excuse to wear a nice dress. He could manage that.

“I thought maybe it was better as a one time thing, as a little bit of temporary madness that could be walked away from,” she said as they walked up the street away from the café with their sandwiches in hand. She was leading and she wasn’t heading back to the office. Will followed with a smile. They weren’t holding hands any more but it was still nice to be in her company.

“If that is easier or better for you-” he started.

“I don’t want easier. I meant it, I missed you.”  

Will reached out and put an arm around her shoulder. Honest and direct. She gave him a startled look as he pulled her in a little closer and kissed her temple. She blushed a little and so he did it again before he let her go.

Somehow it was always easier with her than he expected with her. He kept expecting it to be awkward or strange. Strange to have her in his bed in the morning. Awkward to have her curled up around his Jem. Strange to figure out how to talk to each other after avoiding each other for so long. It should have been awkward or strange, like a strange mix between a first date and getting coffee with an ex.

It wasn’t. It was easy and comfortable, like they’d known each other forever.

They found a park where they could sit at a little picnic table and eat their food. She talked books and teased him for putting so much sugar in his coffee. They talked about work and Jem and Will’s sisters. They were late back to the office. Will couldn’t remember what was on his sandwich.

When he finally got back to his desk, he sat with his phone and wrote and deleted a bunch of messages to Jem before finally settling on, “I invited Tessa to dinner on Friday, do you want to come?” which was almost unnecessarily polite but got the point across. He turned back to his line edits and even that couldn’t stop him from smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter actually has no sex in it. ?!
> 
> The next one will have sex though.
> 
> It's been a while since I've worked on this AU and needed to ease back into the characters and the situation and that is what this chapter is. It's me getting a handle on these versions of these characters. I also wrote a lot of smut. My job has been stressing me out. Writing smut is a nice escape from that. Editing 12000+ words of smut on the other hand is a bit of a process but I think it'll be up in the next two days.


	5. Friday Night Dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look. Here's all the porn!

It had been a nice dinner. She had met them at the restaurant and the conversation had all been so polite that it wasn't much more than small talk. They were tiptoeing around her. She was the one who had ran and while she hadn't really meant to do it, now she was overly conscious of it. It felt like something she needed to explain or make up to them. It felt like a problem that needed fixing.

She couldn't find the right way to interrupt all that too polite small talk and try and explain that this was exactly where she wanted to be. It felt unwelcome to declare something like that when they were talking about siblings and weather and the news. So the small talk had continued through dessert as they’d lingered and chatted over cake until the tension had crested and Tessa had finally suggested that they leave.

"Do you want to split a cab home?" Jem asked out on the street.

Some of her startled disappointment must have shown on her face but he didn't mention it, he just tilted his head and waited for her response. Will was behind her, out of her line of sight but she caught the shift in Jem's expression when they made eye contact. She couldn't read it. This was somehow a game or a test or something and she couldn't read it. It annoyed her. Whether it was meant to be coy and flirty or to be about giving her a chance to say no or something else entirely, didn’t matter. It annoyed her.

She raised an eyebrow at Jem and he quirked a hint of a smile back at her. It wasn’t as nuanced or fluent as the conversations he could have with Will with nothing more than a glance, but it was a start. Her annoyance was slipping. He was cute and it was hard to be annoyed at him when he was watching her so carefully.

Will was easier for her to manage than Jem was. Will didn’t fluster her nearly this much. She could always tell when Will was flirting. He was direct about it. And he was arrogant about how hot he was. Jem was harder to read and he was the kind of attractive that snuck up on her and left her rattled when she’d noticed some detail like his fingers curled into the sleeve of his jacket like he was a lot younger than she knew he was.

"Whose home?" she asked in a carefully neutral voice.

"Anywhere you want to go," Jem said with that hint of a smile curling up towards a grin.  

"Though probably not Buckingham, I don't think the Queen would appreciate house guests at this time of night," Will said and he was close enough to her when he did that she felt his breath on her ear. She had her hair swept up and away from her face in what she hoped was an artful but carefree mass of curls and was probably just a mess. She was also wearing a little too much make up because she'd ran out of time to wash it off a third time and had tried to fix the eyeliner with more eyeliner. It hadn't been bad enough to be late for but it wasn't as good as she wanted it to be. Will's nearness made her self conscious all over again.

The first time they'd done this, she had been wearing her office clothes and hadn't bothered to brush her hair and no one had cared. She tried to hold that thought in her head to keep herself from worrying that her hair was a mess or her makeup was bad or her shoes didn't go with her dress. None of it mattered that much. The editors of Cosmo weren't going to show up to comment on her shoes. As she turned to look at Will, he was not looking at her shoes either.

"I don't want to go back to my place," she said.

"Where do you want to go?" Jem asked again.

This was definitely a piece of some game. In the haze of that first weekend, someone had mentioned that they liked it when she asked for it. Ok. Yeah. She could play the game. She raised her chin and met his gaze and got that little twitch of a smile again. Will was close behind her. Not touching. Probably not even noticeably close to someone watching them from the restaurant's windows but she was very aware of him.

She hesitated. This sort of thing didn’t happen to girls like her. Girls like her mostly stayed home and read books about other people having adventures. Some piece of her couldn’t let go of the worry that it was all going to fall out from under her if she did something wrong or crossed some line. They were going to notice that she wasn’t nearly interesting enough or pretty enough for this kind of attention.

“Gray?” Will asked.

He was closer now. Close enough that she felt his breath on her ear when he said it. She looked up at Jem again and he raised his eyebrows. She opened her mouth without deciding what to say and hesitated again.

“Anything you want,” Jem said with a shrug that was elegant.

"I want to go back to your place and spend the rest of the weekend undressed," she said before anything else could creep into her thoughts.  

"Good choice," Will said.

They were in the cab before anyone touched her.

She hadn't realized that it hadn't happened until the wall was broken. She missed how exactly it happened but she was the one in the middle of the backseat and Will dropped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in to kiss her temple. Casual and friendly and it broke some of building anxiety in her chest. She laughed and leaned into the touch. If she thought about it too much, Aunt Harriet's voice was there in the back of her head to explain all the ways in which even thinking about this was wrong. Tessa needed to keep her thoughts on the moment at hand to keep the doubts out.

The dress she was wearing fell past her kneesand draped in folds of dark blue fabric that looked good without being revealing. She hadn't wanted to be a girl who looked like she was angling to get laid. She was angling for just that but she hadn’t wanted to make it obvious. The dress covered everything but the fabric though was thin even where it was gathered at the skirt. It was thin enough that she could feel the warmth of Will's arm across her shoulder and thin enough that she could feel the warmth of Jem's hand on her knee.

She looked at him and he was staring out the window at the city drifting by as the cab wove its way through the traffic. His hand slipped a little to rest on the inside of her knee before inching higher. It wasn't something the driver could see but it set off alarm bells in her head anyways. Too public. They were going to get caught and that would be embarrassing and she had to cut off that train of thought before it could run away with her. She reached down and grabbed his wandering hand with both of hers and laced their fingers together. He glanced back at her and squeezed her hand back before giving her a little shrug.

"Later then," Jem said.

"Yeah," she said.

She had managed cool and collected for a little while there but even this much touch had completely derailed her ability to think straight. She was distracted and caught up in a mix of memories and fantasies. The place where she was staying was not a shared apartment, it was a room share. London was crowded and expensive as hell and the place hadn't seemed so bad. Sure she had a twin bed in a shared room in a flat too small for the four people squashed into the two little bedrooms but it was clean and cheap and there wasn’t graffiti in the halls.

It was not a good place to be when you were sexually frustrated. The shower was small, the hot water heater was terrible, her roommate was a student who was home more than she was and had her desk in the little bedroom. Tessa wasn't exactly well versed in the things she could do to herself when the mood struck her and she hadn't had much of a chance to figure it out. Knowing that that kind of pleasure was possible and not being able to even approach it had been wearing on her nerves.

She was lonely and horny and had been for weeks.

The mix of being trapped in the warm space between them and of knowing exactly what she was getting herself into was more than she could ignore. Without the touch, she had been able to keep the rest of the thoughts at bay. Now her imagination was calling up stray details for her and playing them over and over while she tried not to let her expression change.

Jem running his finger along her lip.

Will calling her angel with his lips against her ear.

The way an orgasm seemed to cling to her nerves as hands kept skimming over her skin in the aftermath of it.

The way that alarming intimacy became mixed together with degrading moments like being asked to kneel and eat food out of someone's hand. God. That moment of Jem holding food out to her and smiling when she took it from his fingers. She wanted to lift his hand and put her mouth on his skin even if the cabby could see them. She pushed the thought away but it was just replaced by another one.

The way Will caught her hip when she squirmed and he wanted her to stay still.

The way Will laughed and asked about whether or not she hated Hemingway while they were both still breathing hard.

The ache in her muscles after being taken fast and hard in quick succession.

That weekend blurred into a haze of pleasure and excitement and then sharpened into those specific moments that were nearly impossible for her to shake out of her thoughts until they were knocked loose again.

"Ok?" Will asked.

"Of course," she said.

"Liar," he said leaning over to whisper in her ear.

"I'm distracted," she said.

She was. She was distracted by his mouth and his arm around her shoulder and his boyfriend's thumb which was playing with her hand where they held onto each other and by the heat in the stupid cab and by the possibility of someone putting their fingers in her mouth and by the idea of getting to lie in a tangle of limbs and trace Jem's tattoos while he hummed pieces of complex orchestral music to himself. She was utterly distracted.

"Ok," Will said. A statement this time. Not a question.

Jem laughed and it was distant and intimate and turned her thoughts farther into memories of things that she had been working so hard to keep out of her thoughts.

The cab drove. The cab stopped. They got out and eventually, somehow they were in a hallway and Jem was still holding her hand and Will was leaning on the wall across from them with his arms crossed and a smile on his face. The door was right there and no one was opening it and she didn't know if she was supposed to ask for that or not. The cold night air as they'd stepped out the taxi had helped clear out the dirty fantasies and memories but with those out of the way the worries had crept back in.

No. She wasn’t going back into worrying about her aunt or her eyeliner or anything else. She wanted to put her mouth on someone’s skin and leave the real world and all its problems alone for awhile.

"Too many clothes," she said.

If there had been something eloquent in her thoughts, it had gotten tangled and bruised on the way out and that was all that was left of it. Jem laughed softly. "Far too many clothes," he agreed.

"Can we go inside and take them off?" she asked.

Will pushed off the wall in a movement that was somehow all shoulder and swagger and she bit her lip as he took two steps towards her and then turned away. He opened the door to the apartment and she watched him like if she looked away, he would vanish on her. He turned back and held out a hand to pull her along with him.

Stepping inside was like coming home.

This place was where she had been happiest since coming to London. She had come for work and to escape her aunt and the crowds and the city had never really made her happy. It was too gray, too rainy, too crowded, somehow the crowds in London felt different from the crowds in New York ever had. Maybe she had just been homesick. Homesick for a home that hadn't felt like home anymore. She had grown up and needed to leave her aunt and her sheltered restrictive teen years in the past. London had seemed like a good idea. And maybe it was. Maybe it was exactly what she needed but most days she didn't feel like this was where she needed to be, most days she felt alone and adrift.

This place though. This apartment with its too big furniture and too many books and personality ground into every surface had felt more home than anyplace she'd been in years. She wanted to curl up and refuse to leave. Like a stray cat who could just pretend to belong there until someone made the adoption official.

"Last time was…. I mean. It was… It’s not that I'm not because I am but,” she started and then paused trying to make the words make some kind of sense, "I'm very interested in the sex but I'm also a little bit attached."

Will caught her by the elbow. He spun her around and pushed the door shut so that by the time her shoulders hit the wood, it was shut and was blocking the rest of the world out. Damn. He smelled really good and she’d forgotten how much space he took up. He hesitated for a second and held her gaze. Tessa blinked up at him, too startled to remember what she had been saying.

"Good," Will said.

His intensity as he pushed her back into the door and leaned in left her breathless and nervous and so turned on she couldn't think at all. He was closer and he was just tall enough that she had to tilt her head back to watch him.

"I'm the stray cat," she said before he could kiss her.

She was apparently bent on ruining this with inane comments. The space between them was charged. She could feel how aroused he was and it was answered by every beat of her heart. She was scattered and made up more of desire than she was of any other emotion.

"You are not a stray cat, I don’t know what that means but I know that you aren’t," Will said.

"Stray cats wander into your home because you fed them once out of pity and they just sleep on your sofa and pray that you don't kick them out into the rain again," she said.

"You are not a stray cat," Will repeated.

"I am," she said. "I really am."

Will considered her, trying to decide exactly what he wanted to say. She could almost hear the wheels turning inside his head as he stared at her with those eyes. He had amazing eyes. Midnight blue. Dark and deep and so focused that when he looked at you, it was like he was looking at places inside that you had never seen yourself. Will leaned in closer and his eyes were all she could see, his body was all she could feel. The world had narrowed this sliver of space that smelled like his body wash as well as coffee and citrus and that old paper smell of books that clung to the apartment.

"I'm as attached as you are," Will said. "So, fine, you're a stray cat. I'm happy to adopt you, to feed you and stroke you and give you someplace warm and dry to stay."

None of the words made sense. The words were inane. The words were just all she had to make her thoughts into something tangible.

Jem laughed again. The sound was heavy and flirty and made her stomach twist with desire. He always seemed like the more wholesome one until he did something like that. He reached out to run a finger down her cheek as he said - equally inanely - "Here kitty kitty, come home and purr for me."

Will had been completely sincere when he'd offered her someplace warm and dry. Jem was joking, laughing and teasing and bringing everyone back down to reality. Tessa shook herself back into the moment and turned to look at him. He was leaning against the wall, close to Will and close enough to her to leave her boxed in against the closed door. She pressed her shoulders back into the wooden door. There was nowhere else she wanted to be. She looked up and met Jem's eye.

"Meow," she said.

Someone exploded with laughter. She wasn’t sure who it was. Jem was grinning as he caught her face, turned her away from Will and kissed her on the mouth. He did it with enough force and depth to make her grab hold of Will's shirt to keep from collapsing.

Yes.

Yes, this was what she needed and had needed for weeks.

Laughter and kisses that left her annoyed that her body even needed to breathe.

As the kiss broke, Will pulled her back to him and kissed her himself. She gasped and melted into that kiss as well. He bit her lip hard enough to make her gasp and used the gasp to force the kiss deeper. His tongue was in her mouth. His body pressed in tight, his stomach was against hers and there was a tremour of desire or anxiety or something else in the muscles there. The kiss broke and it left her burying her face against his neck and holding on tight so she didn't fall down.

She had no interest in pretending to be calm or collected. She wanted to fall into this and not think about anything but the two of them for a long time. Jem's hand was back on her thigh and was sliding up under her skirt. There would be time, sometime later, for them to sit down and talk and cuddle and go slow but Tessa did not want that moment to happen now.She let them move her around and drop her down on the couch. She sat still and straight for a moment before Jem sat down beside her and nudged her.

"Lie down with your head over the arm there," he said.

She did as he asked and he shook his head, "Higher than that."

What he wanted was for her head to be hanging back over the arm of the couch. It wasn't the most comfortable position but Will was standing over her and unbuckling his pants and that was enough to make her care a lot less about everything else. He tilted her head a little more. Oh. He wanted her to suck his cock like this.

Not going slow then.

She wasn't going to be able to move much. Jem had a hold of her hips and had pushed one of her knees off the edge of the sofa so he could get between them and push her skirt up. He didn't bother to pull her panties off, he just slipped his fingers in around them. She sighed as they slid along her. Before she could have much of a chance to enjoy it, Will was stroking her cheek and running his finger along her lip until she opened her mouth for him.

The angle and way she was trapped by his hands and the sofa behind her head left her helpless. He wasn't hard yet and she could still get him into her mouth without gagging. She tried to suck but beyond that any movement was on his whims. He didn't get hard very fast. He ran his fingers over her cheek and her neck and reached down to slide his hands into her dress and touch her breasts. Her back was arched to stay in the position and he had easy access to anything he wanted to touch.

Not slow at all.

It wasn’t just the cock in her mouth. It was having them both all over her. It was being pinned down like this. She couldn’t see anything but Will’s legs and she couldn’t tell whose hands had gotten inside her bra to tease her nipples and make her moan.

"Don't stop, angel," Will said when she got distracted.

Jem took that moment to switch from the gentle fingering that she had settled into, to pushing her panties aside and closing his mouth on her clit and sucking hard. She had been turned on since the taxi and hadn’t realized that she was that sensitive already. The suction made her yelp around the cock in her mouth. Will's hand caught her cheek and kept her where he wanted her.

"Don't stop," he said again.

Jem was sucking and his fingers were inside her and she was being held down by his hand on her knee and Will's on her face and the position itself. She tried not to stop but she kept losing the plot. She wanted to lie back and enjoy one of these things or the other. Trying to do both at the same time was like losing her mind by degrees.

Will tapped her cheek or press his hips farther into her mouth and she'd pull herself back to what he wanted her to do but it was a losing battle. He was getting harder and the angle of her head had him pressing against the back of her throat more than he had the last time she'd had him in her mouth. He was in complete control and wasn't pushing in hard enough to gag her but the possibility was there and each time he slid in to the back of her throat, she felt a trill of something. Fear maybe or arousal or some mix that defied definition.

Jem made her gasp and Will pushed in to the limit of what she could take and the moment held for a long time before everyone pulled back and she was gasping. Jem went back to the gentle fingering, leaving her orgasm close but unfinished and Will pulled back enough that she could suck again. Then they’d do it all over again. A slow build, a moment of too much that didn’t quite crest to relief and then they were softer again.

Will pulled back without an orgasm.

Jem helped her sit up. She was a little dazed.

Definitely not slow. There was no easing her into the weird stuff this time. Pushy and working together. That feeling that they were a matched set and she was the thing they were playing with unbalanced her. She was something they shared. They had a plan for her and their eyes met over her head as Will came down to sit beside her and take her hand in his. He wasn't looking to hold hands. He curled her fingers around his cock and settled back beside her as she rubbed him.

"I want to tease you until you beg," Jem said into her ear.

"I could beg for you right now," she said leaning into him to rest her head on his shoulder without stopping what her hand was doing. She had the thought to pull out Jem’s cock too so she could play with them both but belt buckles and zippers seemed to difficult so she just rubbed him through his pants as she cuddled in closer.

"Not the same thing. I want you desperate," he said.

"Desperate for what?"

"Release," he said.

"I am, you left me without letting me come."

"No, you want release right now. Desperate will set in after we've left you on that edge over and over and over."

She closed her eyes and didn't answer that. Her thoughts had short circuited trying to decide whether or not that was something she wanted to try. They’d suggested it before but backed off before trying it.

"Tess," Will said.

She nodded.

"Is that, yes, I heard my name or yes, I want you to deny me my sexual release until I'm half crazy?"

"The second one," she said.

"Really?"

She turned to look at him and he smiled at her. He said, "You didn't sound very sure."

He was smiling as though he knew that she was thinking about calling him an asshole. Doing it was one thing, putting into words was somehow harder. Putting it into words and saying them out loud was even worse. It was one thing to agree to do something. It was another to ask for it. She wasn’t even sure why she couldn’t explain the things they did, even to herself.

"There will be release at some point?" she asked.

"Yes and it'll be worth the wait," he said.

"Then you can make me wait."

"You're not going to like it are you?"

"I've been half crazy for weeks. I think this is going to make me lose my mind."

"That sounds fun," said Jem.

He had been playing with her hair as Will had negotiated with her. He had wanted to do this to her last time and they'd never quite gotten around to it. They had planned the things they were going to do to her and the idea of them sitting around discussing doing this to her made her head spin. Being the girl who was caught up in their temporary madness was something she could make sense of. She had been there. She had said yes. Sure. To be planned for specifically left her feeling strange.

Agreeing to this was crazy. She was going to lose her mind. It really was going to make her crazy but something about saying yes to that kind of madness felt inevitable. She wanted to be toyed with and taken. She wanted to be claimed and kept and needed. She wanted to be wanted even if it left her shaking and unable to remember her name.

"Bed room," Will said.

"You're not going to offer me a drink?"

"Not the kind you get out of a bottle," Jem said with a laugh.

Obviously, she was the only one who had any issues saying the dirty things out loud both of them found it funny.

She was already standing and her dress fell back into place neatly. Will grabbed her from behind with his hands on her hips and unzipped the dress and pushed it off her shoulders. She had worn the nice underwear. Her bra and panties matched and she'd worn stockings. She caught the dress before it could get left on the floor and threw it over the back of the sofa. No need to ruin the poor thing because Will had the patience of a kindergartener with a new toy. He gave her a look and wiggled his eyebrows at her as though he could hear what she was thinking.

He left her panties and her shoes on the floor as they went but everything else stayed on. By the time they hit the bed room, she was stripped down to the bra and stockings and he was shirtless. Jem was watching and holding back, letting Will be the one to pick her up and drop her back on the bed.

"Or we could tie her to a chair and make her watch," Will said as though they'd been having a conversation the entire time.

"I'd rather have her close," Jem said.

"Tie her to the bed then?"

"You're going to tie me up?" she asked.

"Yeah, flat on your back, spread out below us while we fuck each other and leave you to squirm," Will said.

She nodded. They had tied her up before. She had been a little surprised by how much she had enjoyed the whole thing. Being held down was better. One of them pinning her to the bed with hands and body weight left her feeling safe and secure no matter what else was going on. Being held down was better but being tied up had been just a little bit thrilling. Unnerving but not in a bad way.

"Just don't leave me alone like that," she said.

"I wouldn't leave you alone for a million dollars," Will said.

This was all set up as well. There was no impulse scarf around her hands this time. There were cuffs, soft and padded and snug that were already attached to the bed. She lay down and let them buckle her in. Arms spread, legs spread, flat on her back without enough range of motion do more than shift her hips.

 

Comfortable enough but trapped. A little voice whispered this from somewhere in the back of her mind and she whispered Will's name. He had been looking away and he turned back to smile at her. The word drifted away and she tilted her head up. He didn't need her to say anything to recognize the invitation. He kissed her and everything else drifted away too.

There was a moment of talking and moving that she couldn't pull herself together enough to understand but was all happening between the two of them and didn’t really involve her. She tested the bonds on her wrists, she arched and squirmed a little just to see what was possible. They pet her when she did, hands running over her body as they talked to each other.

It ended with someone straddling her head and a cock brushing her mouth. This, she could focus on. She took it into her mouth and someone lifted her head up to tuck a pillow under it so she could lay back and still suck and lick and do what she wanted. Her restrained hands meant she couldn't take any control over this blow job either. Once again there was a cock pressing in against her throat and she was just trying to keep up with the movement of his hips.

She wasn't sure who it was. He had leaned forward and all she could see when she tried to look up was his stomach. Tilting her head back to try and see farther just let the cock slip in deeper into her mouth so that it was making it hard to breathe. She could have pulled back, could have asked for a break but he moaned a little and she couldn't bring herself to do anything that would stop this. He wasn’t rough, she could breathe when he pulled back and it didn't take long before she had figured out a rhythm where she could both suck and breathe.

He moaned again and she sucked harder and tried to press up to meet his next thrust. She liked it when he liked it more than she cared about anything else.

Someone unbound one of her legs and she just stayed where she was and kept sucking until he pulled away from her mouth.

It had been Jem. She blinked up at him and smiled as she got a good look at him. He was a little flushed and he lay down to kiss her. She really missed her hands. She wanted to wrap him up and hold onto him. He caught her free leg and pulled it up and then his cock was inside her and she moaned loudly against his neck and struggled against the way she was being held. He leaned in harder and she went still. She didn't beg aloud but only because she was still a little overwhelmed and words weren't manageable yet.

"Stay still," Will said.

She tried to do what she was told. Not that she had many options. Jem shifted over her. He was holding her free knee where he wanted it and pressing her hips back to the mattress with his own. She was hot and wet and ready and she wanted him to start moving immediately. She murmured against his neck and he kissed his way up her throat before he kissed her mouth. She lifted her hips a little and he pressed them back down with his body. It was almost a thrust. Almost enough to calm the needy feeling that was building in her belly.

It didn't take long for her to figure out what was going on.

Will was behind Jem and was the one who was actually doing the fucking.

When Jem had done this to Will, Will had barely been able to keep still. Jem was better at relaxing into it and taking it. He wrapped himself around Tessa, buried himself inside her and stayed put while Will took the control away from both of them.

In conversation, Will was the dominant one but in bed, she'd gotten used to having Jem be unflappably confident and in control. She trusted him completely because he was so comfortable in everything that was happening. Feeling him lose that control when he was so close to her was incredible and alarming all at once. He just let go and gave all the control to Will. She could feel his breathing change, she could feel it when he relaxed or when he tensed, when he moaned it was right into her ear. She nuzzled his hair because her hands were still bound and she couldn't wrap her arms around him.

Will pulled him up and away from her and the feeling of his cock sliding out of her left her feeling empty. She hadn't realized she'd been close to building orgasm until it was pulled away from her. Jem barely reacted to the new position. He kept his arms around her and his face against her neck and readjusted his knees so that his ass was up where Will wanted it. He kept moaning and he held on so she was frustratingly a part of it without any of the touch she wanted. She shifted her hips against nothing. Her range of motion still too reduced for her to do anything but lay there as they fucked each other.

When Jem pulled back, she moaned out a bit of a complaint about that too. Jem had been close. She could feel it in the tension of his body. Then the cock was back in her mouth and they were both over her. Will was still fucking him and he was very close. Cock in her mouth, cock at the back of her throat then pulling away, then being pressed back in.

He was slick with the fluid from her body and his own precum and the taste of it was overwhelming and when he pressed in far enough that his body brushed against her face, sex was all she could smell too. He came while he was inside her mouth, a spurt that hit the back of her throat and filled up her mouth as his hips shuddered. She couldn't breathe as it happened and he leaned into her. Panic started to build and then he was pulling back.

"Lick it up, pretty girl," Will's voice said.

She wasn't sure for a second what she was licking but something was on her tongue and she did as she was told. Jem's cock. She licked and swallowed with a little grimace. It was gross. They were both so turned on by it that her disgust was overwhelmed. Jem rubbed his thumb along her lip as she swallowed the mess he'd left in her mouth and she didn't care what it tasted like if it made him smile like that.

Then Jem was moving away from her and Will was back in her field of vision. Tessa watched as he rolled the condom off. She was struck dumb for a moment as she watched him do it.

It was the unselfconscious moments that stuck with her. Will taking a moment to take off a condom before asking her to suck his cock would be the image she fell asleep to later that week. The moments of sex were great but the moments where the sex was just a part of everyone being human was better. Will wasn't thinking about that moment but a second later he was going to be demanding things of her. She was more than willing to give them but the chance to relax and just watch him even if it was only for a few seconds was what stuck with her.

 

Her foot was reattached to the ties on the edge of the bed and she was utterly trapped again. There was no moment of unease this time. She wanted someone to follow through on the promise to fuck her but there was no worry for her own safety. She was safe. Trapped but safe. Jem sprawled out beside her, absently stroking her thigh, one of his knees tossed over hers.

“Where’s he going?” Tessa asked. She twisted as much as she could to press her face in against Jem’s hair. He slid up closer and readjusted so she could tuck her face in against his neck instead. She kissed his pulse point, his heart was still beating fast. She kissed him again and he tilted his head back and got closer to make it easier for her.

“After where that’s been, I doubt you want it in your mouth and that’s definitely where Will wants to put it. He’ll be back in a minute,” he said.

That wasn’t really something she wanted to think about.

“Mm,” she said sucking on his neck.

He laughed at her and rolled out of her reach. Before she could complain, Will was back in her sightline and watching him climb up over her, naked and hard and smiling pushed out every other thought. She forgot she was tied down until she tried to sit up to meet him. Not being able to sit up surprised her but he didn’t make her wait, he came to her.

Jem was still close and he lay down between her legs to run his hands up her thighs and over Will's body and then along her stomach. His hands were warm and gentle and did nothing to keep her calm. She couldn't see him. All she could see was Will's cock bobbing over her head.

"You're going to suck until I come," Will told her.

Jem's hands were on her stomach.

"I'm going to fight this orgasm and make you work like hell for it, it's going to take awhile," Will said.

Jem laughed somewhere out of her line of sight.

Then Will's cock touched her lips and she did as she was told. She sucked it in and met him when he leaned in so that it was rubbing against her gag reflex and making her question whether breathing was really necessary. It was. She held out longer than she should have before he body reminded her that breathing wasn't optional. She had to pull away from him, coughing and sloppy. He gave her a few seconds to gasp in air and then his cock was back in her mouth and his hand was in her hair and she was tied to a bed and if he wanted to choke her to death with his cock, she couldn't stop him.

That thought might have made her panic.

He was cutting off her air again, his cock resting too deep in her mouth to allow her to breathe through her nose and gasping in air had allowed him to slide down farther so now he was cutting off everything. He was bigger than she was. He was stronger too. Even if she hadn't been tied down, she wouldn't have stood a chance.

The panic never crested though. It threatened but then he pulled back again and let her breathe and relax. Jem’s hands were on her thighs and stroking over her stomach and when she shook her head against Will’s hand as he moved in closer again, he stopped and smoothed her hair back from her face with one hand. His cock was still right there. It was leaving a wet mark on her face as she caught her breath.

“Just a second, give me just a second,” she said.

“Take all the time you want Angel,” Will said.

Will waited with his cock sat against her face. He waited for her to be the one to ask for it. It was right there, unavoidable but he had found the ability to be patient. Once she had her breath back, she opened her mouth and leaned forward and sucked him back again. She wanted this. She wanted it even when it made her gag and struggle. Will leaned into her as she sucked and it crossed the point that she could take and made her gasp to try and get in air.

The whole process started over. She took it as far as she could. He drew back before she panicked. She caught her breath and he slid into her again. They found a rhythm. Eventually, he would have to come. No one could handle having their cock sucked forever. Could they? It sounded true. Eventually she was going to be able to make him come but she was starting to doubt it. She could feel the way his hand tensed in her hair, the shift of the muscles in his stomach and thighs. Eventually that pleasure would have to crest, wouldn’t it?

The whole time, Jem lay between her legs and played with her. He wasn't trying to pleasure her. He stroked her thighs and kissed her stomach and rubbed his fingers along her slit. He explored and played and distracted her from Will but only a little. Will when he was close to an orgasm wasn't forgiving. He was careful enough to let her breathe but if she got distracted he caught her cheek in his hand and pulled her attention back to him. He was demanding.

She couldn't shake the assumption that she was supposed to hate being treated like this. Good girls didn't let boys fuck their mouths until they were gasping and overwhelmed. Good girls didn't let this happen to them. She had let it happen. More than that, she was enjoying letting it happen. There was some corner of her thoughts that rebelled against that enjoyment. How dare she enjoy being tied down? How dare she enjoy having things shoved into her mouth and someone stroking her cheek until she sucked. How dare she enjoy the sucking?

Will stroked her cheek again.

She let that be her touchstone. She held onto the sensation of his fingers on her face and Jem's hand sliding up and down her belly and pushed out everything else. Was she enjoying the touch? Yes. Then that was enough. Pushing the rest of it out got easier as Will got closer to his orgasm. He wasn't playing with her as much. He was relaxing into her and letting her suck on him. She could feel him getting closer and sucked harder and tried to be better to coax him towards the edge.

Her jaw ached.

She had read that in a dirty story once. She hadn't even imagined that you could actually suck a cock until your jaw ached but here she was. Her jaw ached, she had learned how to plan her breathing around his thrusts, she liked the taste of it as he started dripping precum along her tongue. It was still salty and disgusting but it meant that he was close and if he was close then she was doing something right and she liked that.

Will didn't come in her mouth. He pulled back and came all over her face instead. She startled but there wasn't anywhere to go. She was tied down and held in place. She closed her eyes before it hit her but she felt it sliding down the bridge of her nose and her cheek. Will pulled away from her, rubbing his cock against her lips so the last drips were something she could taste before he was gone. She lay alone for a second before they were both back.

"You're an asshole," Jem said.

"She likes it."

"No one likes cum on their eyelashes."

Someone stroked a thumb across her cheek and pushed a glob of cum into her mouth. She sucked it off.

"See?"

"Asshole."

"You should clean her up then."

Tessa was half crazy. She hadn’t come all the way down from the near orgasm and she wasn't sure what had just happened to her. She hadn't been a virgin when she'd met them but they made her feel utterly inexperienced over and over. Her threshold for what was normal, hell, her threshold for what was possible was being scrambled.

Someone was licking her face.

Whe melted into it. He licked the cum off her face. Slowly. Carefully. Warm and wet and soft and unnerving. When he nipped her lip, she opened her mouth and let him kiss her deeply, pushing the taste of that cum into her mouth. Jem. It was Jem wasn’t it? She opened her eyes as she kissed him back.

They untied her and flipped her onto her front and she was still at a loss. Hands on her thighs. Hands sliding up her back. Someone stroking her thighs and then her sex. It was unending and unfulfilling. She wasn’t tied down any more but she stayed where they put her expect to press in a little tighter to some bit of touch.

They were talking and laughing. They had both already come and the taste of it was still in her mouth as they teased her. Will, she knew it was Will because he had made a terrible joke first, was sucking on her breast. There were fingers inside her but they weren't anywhere near the places that might have satisfied the thrumming need inside her. She'd never been so aware of nor frustrated by her body.

She struggled and they held her down.

She moaned and they kissed her.

They had both come and needed time to recover from it. They were using that time to make her lose her mind entirely. Fingers running up and down her legs, thumb and finger rolling her nipple, licks that were too slow and too gentle along her clit. Bodies against hers.

"Please," she muttered.

"So the begging begins," Will said with his mouth against her ear.

She tried to roll closer to him, tried to find some way to force him to sound less amused. He just laughed again. She could have used a safe word. She knew the safe word. The safe word meant a hard stop. If she used it, they would both back away, let her up, talk her through it and no one would force her into anything.

The problem with that was that all she wanted was to be forced into everything. She did not want anyone to stop. She wanted Jem's gentle hand on her thigh to wander higher instead of stopping shy of anything truly intimate. She wanted Will to slid back down and fuck her until she came so hard that she forgot her name.

"Will," she said.

"Tess," he said.

"Will, please."

But that just made him laugh at her. Oh he would slide his hand up the place where she wanted it to be and rub her in the way that she wanted to be rubbed but he stopped shy of the release she needed. She struggled, her back arching her hips twisting, trying to find the contact that he had just stopped giving her. He chuckled and waited for her to stop struggling before he pet his hand down her stomach.

"I can't take this," she said.

"You're taking it very well," Jem said near her ear.

She hadn't realized that he had gotten closer. She was held between them. Bodies pressed in on either side of her and left her shaking and needy. No one offered release. Everywhere she turned left her with a hand on her face or her breast or a mouth bearing down on hers. She pressed up into every touch. She was trying to steal what they didn't want to give and it wasn't working.

She would arch and beg for release and get nothing. Will laughed at her. Jem kissed her forehead. They were soft and gentle but they were also unending. No one was inside her, touches were glancing and retreated too soon.

She was lost.

There was coherence but that was long gone.

Her existence was measured in near-orgasms because there were no true orgasms left.

Nothing else was remotely comprehensible.

Jem touched her face, pulled her in for a kiss. Will made her gasp by forcing his entire cock into her and making her body tense at the surprise of it. She moaned in relief but it didn’t last long enough to get her there. A tongue in her mouth. She wasn't sure whose. A hand between her legs, pushing her to the edge but stopping shy of the completion she needed.

She grabbed hold and begged in his ear but he didn't relent. He was gentle and kind and stroked her back until she was shaking and needy. She pressed herself into his touch. His fingers brought her to the edge as he talked over her head. He left her there. The fingers that had made her groan became a soft palm against the lowest part of her stomach.

Need built.

She moaned and shifted and arched her body up against anyone who touched her.

No one offered any relief.

Jem was constant and gentle, pushing her close and then easing her back down again.

Will pushed her up to the edge and abandoned her.

Over and over.

They were enjoying each other and keeping her on the sidelines of it. When Will needed relief, he turned to Jem. When Jem needed relief, he turned to Will. Tessa got the end result, the cum and the press of sweaty bodies. Her own pleasure, any sort of relief for her was left in the dust. She swallowed everything they gave her. She rolled into every touch. She wanted and wanted and wanted and was starting to lose her mind. Begging didn’t help. Pouting didn’t help. Threatening to leave didn’t help because they both knew she wouldn’t do it.

She liked being close to them when they were together. Really. She was pretty sure that she could literally spend hours watching Will suck on Jem’s cock and not get bored. He was so focused. He never looked away. His lip quirked like he was trying to smile sometimes as he bobbed his head up and down. It was an experience to watch up close. It was just frustrating as hell to watch someone else moan and come and collapse into smiles and laughter and soft kisses when she was left to ache.

They fell asleep.

They left her shuddering and needy and abandoned. One on either side of her, arms curled around her, voices laughing over her but relief a million miles away. Jem fell asleep against her shoulder, his face against her neck. Will just watched him sleep and Tessa couldn't figure out what to say. Will fell asleep almost immediately afterwards. She was left pressed between them with no release and no moment of reprieve. Her stomach was coiled tight with unreleased desire. Her body was left feeling uneasy and needy.

She lay awake between them. Trapped and horny and surprisingly unwilling to take matters into her own hands. She lay on her back, running over the things that had happened that night and considering it. They were both asleep and she wasn’t sure she could stop being aroused anymore but using her fingers felt like cheating somehow.

What were they going to do to her in the morning? How long were they willing to do this? What were they going to do to finally bring out the orgasm? She was curious. She finally understood what Jem had said about wanting her to want it more than he cared if he got to do it. She wanted them to give it to her more than she wanted the pleasure on its own.

She eventually fell asleep too. Frustrated but surprisingly content with it.


	6. Saturday Morning

"Can I have your ass?" Will asked.

"What?"

Jem looked over. They were still sprawled out in bed, half the blankets were on the floor, the sheets were twisted and the ties that had been holding her down before were still looped around the headboard. Tessa lay on her stomach with her head pillowed on her arms and her hair spread out around her. She wasn't wearing anything and Will was tracing lazy patterns up and down her spine with his finger. Jem watched as his finger kept sliding down until he was tracing circles on her bottom.

They had woken up slow. No one had gotten out of bed for long. They’d had coffee that Will had made and a box of grocery store muffins for breakfast and they’d eaten it in bed. There hadn’t been any sex. Some kissing, hands everywhere, Tessa nuzzling and kissing skin, Will touching everything and everyone like he owned them. Jem was turned on enough that thinking about anything but sex was hard but not so turned on that he was hard yet.

"Your ass," Will said again.

Tessa blinked at him.

"What are you planning on doing with it?" Tessa asked.

"Fucking it, eventually," Will leaned in and kissed her before he said, "Don't look so worried. I'm not going to start there. I'm going to draw it out until you beg for it."

"I don't, I'm not, I'm not into pain," she said.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Will said. "You've seen me do it to Jem."

"And I don't think I could take anything that hard -" she faltered on which words to use.

"Yeah you can, I go just as hard on you," Will said.

"It's not the same," she said.

"No, but give it a few weeks," he said. "I'm going to start gentle and go very slow. Trust me, I get off on making you like it. I want you to enjoy sucking my cock and enjoy eating out of my hand and enjoy that thing Jem does when he goes hard and deep and doesn't stop until he's done. I'm not going to hurt you. Are you worried it's going to hurt or do you just not like the idea?"

Tessa shifted a bit. Jem rolled over and ran his hand down her back. She was turned into Will now and looked back at him, the nervousness was still there in her eyes. The tell in her body language was small and it had taken Jem a little while to start picking up on it. The little shift as she tried to make sense of what she truly wanted and what she had been taught to want. It was in her hips and her fingers more than it was in her face and her voice. Her hands were twisted tight in the sheet as she spoke. Jem gathered up her hair, smoothed it down and kissed her neck.

"Tess," Will said.

"Mostly I'm worried it's going to hurt," she finally admitted after a long pause in which Jem had made it all the way down from her throat to her shoulder and back up to the hollow behind her ear again. She had cuddled back into him as he’d done it and he had wrapped an arm around her back.

"Do you trust me?" Will asked.

"Yeah but-" she started and then fell silent.

"If there is anything you don't like, anything that hurts or if it turns out that you just don't like it, you say so and it stops."

"What if I just say no?" she asked.

"Then just say no," Will said. "You haven't said no yet. I am negotiating because you're not saying no, you're telling me what worries you. If you want to say no, I'm not going to get offended. I've got a whole bunch of things left to do to you that don't include that."

Tessa didn't say anything. That shift was back. A little twist in her hips, a change in her breathing, Jem couldn't see her face but he could imagine her gaze skating away from Will's as she thought about it.

"It stretches and there's always a bit of an ache when it starts," Jem said into her ear and the shift became a shiver. "Your body relaxes into it though. It's intense. Not painful but always closer to the pain side of that line between pleasure and pain. It's more sensation that you're expecting even when you've done it before, even when it's just a single finger. Your body, my body anyways, is never expecting that kind of intrusion. I like it. I like the near pain that settles into intense pleasure."

"Damn, now I want to be fucked," Will said.

"I could do that for you," Jem said.

He still had his lips against Tessa's skin but having one close while he was fucking the other had become his favourite kind of sex so fast he could barely remember what he had liked before. Tessa was gentle and kind and wouldn't keep her hands to herself when she was in bed with them. She kissed and played with hair and stroked any bit of skin she could reach. Jem was caught up imagining her with her ass spread open was getting all tangled up in imagining her cuddled in close while Jem took Will hard enough to push that pain line.

Rearranging themselves had become easy.

Will rolled over so he was on his stomach with his ass up and a challenging grin on his face. Maybe it would be better to draw it out. Jem flipped him over, lying him out on his back. Tessa was nearby but the conversation about fucking her was abandoned. Will liked this position well enough but it wasn't one they used for quick and dirty kind of sessions.

Will raised his eyebrows.

"I want to make you want it so much that you beg for it," Jem said.

"I don't beg."

"Give me time."

Tessa always seemed fascinated by them when they were arguing back and forth like this. She would just sit back and watch until someone grabbed her hand and pulled her into it. Will didn't waste any time.

"Come here," he said.

He pulled her in and nudged her up onto her knees then pulled her over his chest so that she was facing Jem. She was straddling Will so that she wasn't quite sitting on his face but when he pulled her knees wider, she nearly collapsed onto him. She didn't struggle against where he had put her but she obviously had no idea where to put her hands or how to keep her balance when he leaned in to lick her. Will's mouth was not on her clit and she squirmed at the touch. Jem didn't have a good enough angle to see what exactly he was doing but he could imagine Will's mouth on her asshole being the reason for her tightly closed eyes and parted lips. Jem just watched the two of them for a moment.

"I'm going to put my fingers in your ass, now," Will said.

"Ok," Tessa gasped.

Jem caught her face and pulled her in for a kiss. He was still kissing her when her mouth fell open and she went still. Will casually passed the bottle of lube around her as she murmured something incoherent and her head fell down against Jem's shoulder. Had she come yet? They'd been denying her so long that he couldn't remember if she had or not. He ran through the things they'd done. He was pretty sure that she hadn't. That explained why her reaction to a single finger was so strong. She was wound so tightly that she was going to explode. Jem held her close. Will was still wet and messy from the last round the night before so it didn't take much lube or effort to slide into him.

Will groaned.

Jem put the urge to go fast and hard to the side and stuck to slow strokes. He let Will settle into it and then started to slide in as deep as he could, pressing a little on the end of each stroke once their bodies were together. Will's stomach muscles jumped a little each time he did it. Near pain. This was more than Jem could take. Will had done it to him before and the slowness didn't take the edge off of the deepness. Will was bigger than he was and maybe that was the difference or maybe Will just liked the pain a little more.

Jem wasn't in a hurry. He could be slow and indulgent and lean into those strokes until Will murmured for him.

Besides, Tessa held both their attention. She was over sensitive from all the denial. She hadn’t come once and in that time she hadn't been out of arms reach either. Will had invaded her shower. She had eaten her meals with her hands bound. She had been touched and touched and teased and left on the edge over and over. Will was playing with her ass as Jem played with his. She was falling apart. She kept leaning into Jem then she'd try to sit up and pull herself together but she couldn't do it.

"Don't come," Will said.

"Please," Tessa muttered.

"Not you, I’m talking to James."

"You're not giving orders here,” Jem said leaning in a little to make Will gasp for him.

"I want her to come with my fingers up her ass and you buried the rest of the way inside her. You can do anything you want to me after that," Will said.

Tessa made an inarticulate sound in response. She was so far gone. Jem stroked her hair. She was only able to stay upright because she was leaning into him. He wanted to drag the denial out another round to keep her like this a little longer but Will wanted her to come like this. He had two fingers inside her and was stroking them in and out to the sloppy sound of too much lube. Tessa had her mouth open and was panting more than she was breathing. Will grazed something sensitive and she moaned.

"Come on then," Jem said.

Jem pulled back and Will pushed Tessa into the place where he wanted her. Jem was sitting and she was in his lap and then she was sliding down on his cock and moaning as she squirmed and pushed herself lower. Jem held onto her, one arm around her back in an embrace that he hoped she would find comforting and the other on her hip to keep her still and draw this out just a little longer.

Jem felt Will slide into her. She groaned into his ear as it happened but he could actually feel Will's fingers in her ass. Jem pressed his hips up and his cock rubbed against Will's knuckles through her body. Knowing that that was what he was feeling was enough to push the sensation a little higher. Tessa whimpered and held onto him but was past the point where she was going to try to take back control.

It was easier to rock her hips against his body than it was to try and thrust. Will was still inside her and for a little while they just experimented with her. Will had a hand on her hip. Jem was supporting her from where her thighs crossed his.

Jem took mercy on her first. Will wasn't patient but he liked how much the denial made her squirm too be the one to break it. Jem did too but no so much that it would overshadow how much he wanted to watch her lose the last shreds of her composure. He slid his hand down and caught her clit in his fingers and pushed her the rest of the way over the edge into an orgasm that made her cry out and arch and nearly collapse.

"He's not done yet," Will said still holding her in place with one hand on her hip and the other buried inside her ass.

Jem was close and the force of her orgasm had nearly taken him with her. He held onto her and kept going. She couldn’t come back down from the orgasm as eh fucked her. Will didn’t pull back. She had a pair of fingers still inside her and either of them gave her much of a break. She squirmed against Jem and it didn't take long before he was coming too. She was holding onto his shoulders and panting into his neck and taking it more than she was enjoying it. Jem tried to lay her down gently but Will wasn't done and he wasn't done with her.

He laid her out on her back and closed his mouth over her clit as he went from playing with her ass to using his fingers to fuck her there. She came again and then he kept her on the edge of that orgasm until she was thrashing. His fingers never slid out of her. Then he rolled her over and pulled her ass up. It wasn't a position that she had ever chosen but she didn't question it.

"Will," Jem said.

"She can take it again, can't you angel?" Will said.

"Please," she muttered and it could have meant anything.

Jem lay down beside her and caught her face to force her to look at him. There had to be a line somewhere and this felt like where it might be. The pleasure and the mix of force and gentleness that usually turned her on could have pushed her past what she wanted to handle. Not what she could take but what she would be happy with when they were sitting together later.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

Will had paused, he wasn't inside her yet though he was playing with her asshole and stroking her back.

Tessa kissed him. It wasn't an answer and it didn't take the edge of his worry.

"Talk to me, Tessa," he said when the kiss broke.

"I didn't think it would be good," she said.

"Is it?"

"I don't want to stop, not yet," she said.

"I'm right here," Jem said.

"I know. I love you," she said.

He blinked at her but it had been said in the middle of sex and things said during sex didn't count but the words still echoed around in his head even as Will started moving against her again. He slid into her and she shuddered and pressed herself into Jem. She was on her knees and the only reason that she hadn’t collapsed was because Jem was holding onto her. 

Will enjoyed making her arch and pant. He made sure that she came a third time before he finished inside her and finally let her collapse to the mattress. She was sweaty and flushed and shivering. Jem slid in close, rolling her over and pressing her between them so that her back was against Will and she could bury her face against Jem’s neck until her breathing had come back down. Will wasn't ready to be that nice and his fingers came around to play with her clit and force her to over the edge of another orgasm.

She held on and for a moment, Jem thought she might have lost consciousness but she blinked her eyes open when he stroked her cheek and turned her head up.

"Tell me you liked that," Will said when everyone was breathing normally again.

"Yeah," she said.

"Someday, eventually, when you're ready, we're going to fuck you at the same time, one of us in each hole," Will said.

"Yeah," she said again as she snuggled in closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't love this chapter, I'd edited it and then left it with intentions of changing or adding to it. Today I want to write fluff in this world but first I needed to finish that arc a little better than I left it off in the last chapter. So here's this one.


	7. Chapter 7

Jem's skin was always warm. She pressed herself in close to him because she was too tired to even think about getting up. He held onto her and that magical ability he had to make her feel safe was keeping her sane. There were moments where it was all too much but then there would be a moment like this and she would be able to come back down, calm and relaxed and safe again. It was easier to feel safe in the middle of everything else when she knew that this would come again.

Jem had tattoos over his body. Nothing that would show when he was fully dressed but enough to make his body a work of art without his clothes. She traced the pattern on his upper arm and she could feel him watching her. It was just a pattern but she moved on to his chest where a pair of Chinese characters had been inked onto his skin in black brush strokes. She traced the lines with her finger tip and looked up at him.

"Does it mean something?"

He told her but she hadn't been expecting him to speak Chinese. She glanced back down at them and then up again and he told her in English, "It means understanding music. It's a metaphor for the deepest friendship or connection between two people." He pulled her in closer and whispered the story in her ear. She smiled and closed her eyes as he spoke.

“Understanding music,” she repeated because it sounded right.

"You should ask him to play for you," Will said.

"Play?"

"He plays the violin," Will said.

"You do, I remember you saying you gave lessons," Tessa propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him with a smile. "Can you play for me?"

"Now?"

"Yes."

"I don't have any pants on."

"Do you need pants on to play the violin?"

"I think I do. I mean, not technically but it would be weird to play naked."

"You're weird," Will said.

"I'm not. Playing instruments while naked is weird," Jem said.

"I disagree, I would do everything naked if I had the chance. There is nothing that wouldn't be better naked," Will said.

"Going to work?" Tessa asked.

"I am an editor. I would not go to that office while naked but someday, I will freelance from home and I will edit books while naked. I would grocery shop naked if I could get away with it. I realize it's a health and safety violation for shops to have cocks hanging about but personally, I wouldn't mind if they didn't. And for the record, my cock is very hygienic."

"It is not, you put it in all kinds of very dirty places. I have seen you do it," Tessa said.

“Don’t be vulgar,” he said with affront.

“Says the naked man talking about his cock and grocery shopping in the same sentence. You are the vulgar one,” Tessa said. That made Will laugh and playfully shove her in the shoulder. She rolled away out of range.

Jem insisted on putting on pants before he would take the violin out. Tessa wrapped herself up in a borrowed sweater that hung down to her thighs and Will predictably refused to wear anything. In the living room, Jem took out the instrument and took a few minutes to fuss with it. Tessa assumed he was tuning it but she didn't actually know anything about violins so he could have been doing anything. She liked watching him so focused on the task. His attention on the violin was as intent as it was when he was having sex.

She immediately regretted that mental connection.

She was not going to be able to see him with a violin ever again without thinking about him during sex. Here and now, when he was shirtless and rumpled and Will was standing there with her completely naked, it was fine. Thinking about that in this moment was fine but someday she would see him at a recital or with one of his students and her mind would go places that would thoroughly distract her. 

"Sit back, listen to a lovely serenade," Will said.

Jem rolled his eyes. 

Wil grabbed Tessa around the waist and pulled her down with him as he sat on the sofa. She ended up in his lap and settled back so that she could put her head on his shoulder and twist around to watch Jem finish adjusting knobs on the instrument. Jem looked up at them and smiled. He had a folder lying open beside him.

"What should I play for you?" Jem asked.

"Your favourite," Tessa said.

"Something you wrote," Will interrupted.

"You write music?" Tessa asked.

Jem shot a look over her head at Will as though he was embarrassed by that fact and wished Will hadn't brought it up.

“That’s incredible,” Tessa said.

“It is,” Will said. He was looking at Jem when he said it. Jem looked back at him with his lips a little too tight together. “It’s an incredible skill and he’s good at it. Really good. Could be famous kind of good.”

“I don’t want to be famous,” Jem said.

“Then don’t but don’t pretend that means you’re not amazing,” Will said.

Jem smiled and the annoyance in his expression faded away. He crossed the room to lean down past Tessa and kiss Will. It was a private kind of kiss. The kind she saw far less often. They played around, they had sex, they argued and bantered and laughed while she was there but she rarely saw this. It made her chest tight to be caught in the middle of a moment that was so soft.

The kiss held for a little while before Jem pulled back.

“Play the girl something pretty,” Will said in terribly put on accent that could have come from anywhere on the planet. It broke the softness of the moment before and Jem snorted and shook his head as he walked back to put the folder of sheet music away.

He lifted the instrument and closed his eyes and Tessa smiled at him as he leaned into the first note. He was serious and still and drew the bow slowly. The piece started off slow before spinning off into faster melodies. It was bright and happy and Tessa stared at him as he played.

It was more than she was expecting.

There wasn't another way to describe it.

More.

He pulled notes and melody out of the instrument as though it were effortless. His eyes shut and his body swaying along with the music. Will tightened his arms around her but she had almost forgotten he was there. Jem held all her attention. When the music came to an end, she was a little startled to find herself just sitting in the living room of a mediocre flat.

"That was beautiful," Tessa said.

"He's amazing," Will said.

"I'm not. I'm mediocre and I should practice more," Jem said.

"I'll listen to you practice any day," Tessa said.

Jem came over and tilted her chin up so he could kiss her as softly as he had kissed Will before he had started to play.

Jem played another piece of music before putting the violin away in favour of joining them on the couch. Will had recited a piece of poetry that Tessa hadn’t liked which sparked an argument that left Jem staring at them. Jem shared a story of visiting his mother's aunt in China the year before. Tessa had curled up between them and just let herself relax into it all.

“I want to go back to bed,” Will said later. They were still sitting in the living room,

“Aren’t you ever tired?” she asked Will.

“Sure. Doesn’t mean I don’t still want to go back to bed.”

“You know that factoid about men thinking about sex every nine seconds or something?” Jem asked.

Tessa nodded.

“It’s bullshit for everyone but him. He does actually think about sex that often.”

“Nine minutes, not seconds. I think the fact is men think of sex every nine minutes which is not so unreasonable.”

“That’s hundreds of times a day,” Tessa said.

“160 and that includes sleeping time and so factoring in really dirty dreams and averaging out the fact that when I am thinking about sex, I can focus on it for at least a few minutes at a time. It’s not so unreasonable. Jem is not much better. Neither are you. You aren’t wearing pants either,” Will said sliding his hand up her thigh.

She almost argued with him but on the weekends she spent with them, she thought about sex pretty much the entire 24 hours of the day.

“I’ll go back to bed.”

“Excellent. Carstairs?”

“Always,” Jem said.

“Get up, come on Gray, I have things I want to do to that cute butt of yours,” Will said.

“You’re such a fucking romantic,” she said.

“I am immensely romantic. I am not just not romantic at this exact moment. Later. Later, we can do romance. Now, this,” he said sliding his hands the rest of the way up her legs to cup her ass and push her to her feet. She stumbled a little bit in surprise and he caught her hips to keep her steady as he stood up behind her and kissed the back of her neck. She shivered as he turned her and pushed her towards the bedroom.

They had a drawer full of sex stuff. It was a jumbled mess. Everything from condoms to cuffs to things that vibrated and Tessa had to guess at their function. Will was still holding onto her as he rummaged around in it.

“I like this but it is probably still too much for you,” he said tossing one back.

“Are you really picking something for me?”

“Yes, do you have a colour preference?”

“You’re not putting that inside me, anywhere.”

“No, not that one. Maybe this?”

Tessa was still wary of Will's rather enthusiastic plans for her body. It had been good that morning. The fingers in her ass was a very different sensation than fingers in her vagina had been. But it hadn't been bad. She had been braced for bad. For it to hurt. What very little she knew about anal sex usually boiled down to girls talking about it hurting. That and watching the two of them together and while they both very obviously enjoyed what they were doing, it all still seemed a bit overwhelming.

“I have never used sex toys,” she said.

“We need to go shopping for girl sex toys then but that’s a thing to do later. Now. This,” Will said showing her the thing he had chosen. She eyed it and he leaned in to whisper in her ear, “This is way more comfortable than my fingers are. If that was ok, this will be fine.”

“I may stop it.”

“I know. That’s fine.”

She looked at him. His expression was soft and focused and a little bit hungry. She reached up to push his hair out of his eyes and he smiled at her. He was far, far too handsome to even talk to a girl like her and she still wasn’t sure how she had found herself weeks into a complicated undefined something with him and his equally beautiful boyfriend. She closed her eyes and kissed him. He smiled into her mouth and kissed her back as he shifted her in his arms and walked her back to the bed.

The kiss lasted for awhile and by the time he pulled back she was flat on her back and he was sprawled out over her and she couldn’t remember how that had happened. Will grinned and nudged her hip to roll her over. Being on her stomach where she couldn’t see him stole back some of the relaxation that had come with the kiss. Will nudged her into place on her hands and knees and that didn’t help.

“Give me a kiss,” Jem said.

He had gotten closer while she was distracted and he slouched down beside her so it was easy to lean over and kiss him. Soft lips. Very, very gentle. He was distracting her so she didn’t get nervous as Will started to touch her. It was working. Will’s fingers didn’t make her jump until he was pushing inside her and even that didn’t take long to relax into. Just a finger like he’d done earlier in the morning.

The toy was different enough to distract her from the kiss. Jem kissed her cheek as she gasped. Her body stretched but before it was too much, the thing slid into place and her body closed around it. She shivered and shifted and it stayed. Her mouth was open as her body reacted to the new set of sensations. Will ran his hand up her back as he came to lay beside her. She was still up on her hands and knees where he had put her and she looked down at him.

He was grinning, smug and very curious as he watched her reaction. She pressed her lips together and took a slow breath through her nose. It didn't hurt. It was just there. It didn't hurt but every time she so much as shifted, she could feel it and she wasn't sure what it would feel like if she laid down or tried to stand up. Caught by indecision and the unfamiliarity of the sensation, she just stayed where he had put her. Will's expression softened and he reached out to run a hand along her body.

"Lie down with me," he said.

Hearing it from him was enough to push past her indecision. She eased herself down. She was too aware of the toy in her ass but it still didn't hurt. It was small enough that she could move easily but knowing that didn't make her any more comfortable with it. She settled beside Will and he pulled her in closer to him. She lay on her stomach and he lay on his back but they were side by side and her hip and leg was pressed up against his. She didn't look away from him.

"It's ok?"

"So far."

"Can I turn it on?" he asked.

"On?"

"On. It vibrates if you want it too," he said shaking a little remote control at her. The shit eating grin was back. She wanted to refuse him just because he kept smiling like that.

"You're a cocky bastard."

"You are very willing," Will said.

"Did you just call me a slut?"

"No," Will said with a laugh. "I called you very willing. There are other words we can use. Passionate. Enthusiastic. I guess, if we were being crude, I could call slutty but it's not a word I would ever choose for you."

"You call me slutty," Jem said.

"You are slutty," Will told him.

"You're sluttier than I am."

"True. I am the sluttiest slut. I appreciate and embrace that."

Tessa laughed and that made her too aware of the thing in her ass again. The reminder cut off the laughter. Jem was sitting near them on the bed, watching. Tessa wanted to turn and look at him but Will was right there in front of her and all she could see while she was lying like this was his eyes. She didn't want to look away.

"On?" he asked again.

"Ok."

He clicked it and she clenched her entire body. Jem made a soft sound that might have been arousal or might have been a suppressed laugh. Tessa's mouth fell open and her eyes fell shut and she forced herself to relax inch by inch. It was impossible to ignore or to think around. Each time she started to get a handle on it, Will would change the setting and she'd be knocked back into incoherence.

"Roll over," Jem said.

She blinked herself back into the real world and Will was watching her from inches away. She forgot for a second that Jem had been the one speaking to her and leaned in to kiss Will because he was nearer. He kissed her back, smiling and gentle. He changed the setting again and she moaned into his mouth. He kissed her harder in response.

"On your back, Tess," Jem said.

This time she did as she was told. Will looped an arm around her neck and cradled her in against his shoulder. She blinked up at Jem who leaned down to kiss her. He was still wearing the track pants without a shirt. Seeing him half dressed made her want to demand he be fully undressed. She ran her hand down Will's chest and across his hip, groping for his cock without looking down. If she was going to be this incoherent, she wanted someone else as turned on as she was. Will grabbed her wrist and laced his fingers with hers, pulling her hand away. She made a soft sound of protest.

"This is about you," Will said.

"I want your cock."

"I want you to come," he said.

"Please," she whispered leaning over and nuzzling his shoulder and neck.

"You first, then you can suck us both off with the vibe still inside you," Will said.

She started to protest but Jem was rearranging her legs and he slid his hands down the inside of her thighs and she turned her attention back to him. Will had reset the toy to a lower setting so it rumbled inside her but didn't completely dominate her thoughts.

Jem took up the rest of the space in her thoughts a moment later when he licked her. She moaned. He went slow at first before getting stronger. Will watched him and played with the settings until the toy in her ass matched whatever Jem was doing. They held onto her and she gave up on trying to keep track of her sensations. She had managed to find Will’s cock but she was too distracted to do much with it and he pulled her hand away. She did not last long. She came hard and fast and screamed into Will's neck as Jem held her on the shaking side of the orgasm for a moment too long.

She came back down, breathing hard with her mouth open and the two of them pressed in close to her. She nuzzled Jem and he kissed her. His mouth was wet and maybe she would have been bothered by that once but not any more. As she lay there, Will eased the toy out and then slid it back in, wetter than before. He murmured questions and she muttered back answers about how it didn’t hurt.

"I had an asshole boyfriend once, tell me that you could train a girl," she said.

"Sounds like an asshole."

"That's exactly what you're doing to me right now," Tessa said.

"I wouldn't say it like that. I don’t mean it like that. I want you to like this because I like this. It’s not some grand manipulation plot. I’m pretty sure I was very upfront with my goals in this and what I want to do you. If you’re uncomfortable with it, we can not. I could. Or,” Will sounded more uncomfortable than she had ever heard him.

Tessa cut him off before he could smooth the words out, “I know. I don’t feel manipulated. I meant it to be funny. I’m just too spacey right now to be funny. I do like this. I have liked everything we’ve done today.”

"So, it’s working?" Jem asked.

Tessa shoved him and he laughed. 

"Yeah, I guess so," she said.

The toy was back down on a low setting as she drifted in the aftermath of the orgasm but it was still inside her. She didn't want it out. The next time someone suggested it, she wasn't going to hesitate before saying yes. She was glad they could laugh about it because otherwise it would have freaked her out. She was very, very willing to try this and experiment with it and every moment she trusted them a little bit more to do what they wanted to her.

Will turned her face back for a kiss and she leaned into it. She tried to put into the kiss how much she was enjoying herself. He kissed her back and when they pulled apart, he was grinning at her.

"Off the bed, on your knees," Will said.

She did as she was told, holding on to someone's arm so that she didn't stumble as she sank to the floor and they moved around her. They were both very hard and they stood very close together so when she took one cock in her mouth, the other was touching her face. She shut her eyes and started to suck on the nearest one. She wasn't sure who it was. The toy kicked up a level and she moaned.

He tapped her cheek and said, "Pay attention to what you're doing."

Someone was back to being bossy. She turned her head to the other cock and started sucking it instead. He laughed. She thought it might have been Jem. He tapped his wet cock against her cheek and she reached up to push it away.

"No," he said. "Hands behind your back or I'll tie them there."

Definitely Jem.

He was hot when he was bossy.

He was annoying as hell when he was bossy.

She did as she was told but he rubbed it along her face as she tried to stay focused. The toy vibrated harder and she almost used the safe word out of pure annoyance but someone stroked their fingers through her hair and she leaned into the cock she was sucking. Let him be bossy. She wanted to make him come so hard he forgot he was a brat. She reached up again to stroke the other one. It was only halfway on purpose. She had halfway forgotten the threat.

That earned her handcuffs and Will laughing at her.

When he was done clicking the cuffs into place. He dropped the chain with the key on it around her neck and pulled her head back to his cock. She set to work on it, taking it deep and sucking hard. This was definitely Jem. She didn’t need to look up to know that. The way his hand curved around her neck, the way he leaned into every thrust, it was definitely Jem. Will rubbed his cock along her cheek and she made the cuffs rattle trying to raise her hands and stop it. Her face was wet and streaked with saliva and precum and when he slapped his cock against her face it made a wet sound on each hit.

She looked up. Jem was watching her and she held his gaze.

"We can stop if you want," he said.

Sometimes hearing that was comforting. Right now, it was annoying. She didn't want to stop. Nothing about this was painful or frightening. It was just degrading. She was still wet, there was a vibrator in her ass and cocks against her face. It was like something out of a porno.

She didn't like the cock on her face but all the other the individual pieces of what was happening were wonderful. She liked giving up control. She liked the toy. She liked the cock in her mouth. She liked how close the boys were to each other as well as to her. She liked the handcuffs and the way that Jem was watching her. But all together it just left her feeling like a slut.

"You're going to owe me some sort of fancy date for this," she said after pulling back from the cock.

"Roses and chocolate, I promise," Jem said.

He smiled and she knew he understood it. This was closer to how he and Will negotiated submission. Realizing that made it very clear that what was annoying her was that she liked it so much. Horny and bound and on her knees and she didn’t want to get up. Fuck. She should have wanted to get up and walk away. She glanced at Will who leaned his head on Jem’s shoulder as he smiled at her. Fuck. All three of them knew very well how much she liked what was happening.

"My cock is cold and wet, you should do something about that," Will said tapping it against her cheek again.

"My face is cold and wet," she said.

"I'll warm you up when we're done," Will said.

She took him back in her mouth and sucked him in. He pushed back into her mouth and made her gasp as he turned the toy up again.

"Don't get distracted," Will said.

She tried to suck him but the toy was making her pant. He didn't turn it down and he didn't let up. His cock slid into her mouth. Not far enough to make her gag but farther than she would have taken it if she was the one in control. She was messy and couldn't do it properly but when she got herself together enough to look up at him, he was grinning. Jem was leaning against him and his cock rested on her face. She tried to keep her attention on sucking but he positioned himsel so that his cock bumped into her lips and Will's cock so she almost had both of them in her mouth. The angle wouldn't allow her to actually do that but the nearness of both pushed her a little closer to incoherent.

She wanted to. She leaned into it and licked so she could taste them both. They held still and let her do that for a little while before someone turned her face back and she took his cock back in her mouth. Will. Jem dropped down and rubbed her to the edge of an orgasm before standing up and rubbing her face with his cock again. She pulled away from Will and looked up at him.

“Please?” she said.

“Not yet,” he said.

She swallowed down the urge to beg for the orgasm and he waited with his cock resting against her lips. She glared a little and sat down with her feet crossed. She needed a moment to catch her breath. Jem leaned down and kissed the top of her head. Will played with her hair and she tilted her head up to look at them.

“Yet, you just have to wait for it,” he told her.

“I should make you beg to come,” she said.

“You should. But some other day,” Jem said.

“It’s really hard to resist just setting my cock on your head when you look up at me like that,” Will told her. “You’re the right height for it when you sit like this. I can just put it on you like a hat.”

Tessa choked on her laugh. Of all the things, he could have said at that moment, she wasn’t expecting that. Jem reached down to play with Will’s cock while he contemplated that and grinned at her.

“Ugh, don’t do that,” Tessa said.

She pulled herself back up without her hands and licked the end of his cock. Jem stroked and she sucked on the end and Wil looped an arm around Jem’s shoulders and just smiled while it happened. They pushed him over the edge like that, working together while he watched with half lidded eyes and a lazy smile. Tessa swallowed it and kissed his stomach before turning her attention to Jem.

“Sit,” Will said.

“Me?”

“Jem.”

“Why?” Jem asked.

“It’ll be a better position so I can play with her while she finishes you off,” Will said.

Jem considered arguing. Tessa could see it cross his face. He liked her on her knees like this. Instead of questioning it, he dropped back onto the edge of the bed and spread his knees. Will untied her hands which Jem looked like he also wanted to argue about but it let her brace herself on his knees. Will had her kneel up and lean forward and she needed her hands to keep from falling on her face in that position. Will played with the toy. Pulling it out, pushing it back in. He was close to her. Touching and stroking her back and her thighs and sliding his hands down over her ass or up her stomach as he teased her.  

Tessa took Jem back into her mouth and let herself enjoy it. Everything about this position was wonderful. Jem played with her hair. Will was touching her and his hand found its way between her legs and rubbed slow circles. Hard but slow. She moaned and pressed her hips back towards him.

“Jem comes first, you’re going to have to work harder than that,” Will told her.

Jem held out as long as he could. He made her work for it. When it was all over, she had cum running down her chin and her face was sticky and wet and her jaw ached. Will rubbed harder and pushed her over the edge before Jem was finished and it spilled down her face as she moaned.

Someone helped her to her feet and eased the toy out of her ass while the other got a cloth to clean off her face. Jem pulled her back down into his lap and looped his arms around her. She leaned against him and let him hold her up. She could have sat on her own but she wanted to be close to his body. His heart rate was still fast from his orgasm and she shifted her head so she could listen to it pound.

She had done that to him.

"Are you ok? Did that cross a line?" Will asked.

"No but it was really really fucking close to it at the beginning" Tessa said.

"What do you need?" Jem asked.

"Come here," she said and she reached for him.

He sat down with them and ran his fingers through her hair. She reached out and grabbed his hand so she could feel his skin too. She shut her eyes and relaxed. She was half aware of them kissing each other over her head but she just burrowed in closer to rest her head on Will's chest and stroke Jem's back. She was still naked and still panting and the little aches of her body were a road map to what had happened to her. Not happened, that was far too passive a word. What she had done. She had done it. She rested between them and turned that phrase over in her head until she was ok with it.

"Shower?" Will asked.

"Come with me?" she asked.

"Gladly," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's theme seems to be aftercare. 
> 
> Fun fact. I often write porn after a few glasses of wine so I don't always remember it super well when I come back to edit it a few days later when I'm totally sober. So the brat line was a surprise but I like it. I remember writing the "sluttiest slut" line but that one entertains me too.
> 
> I'm not sure why I like it so much but I like that when Jem gets all bossy, Will's default reaction includes the word "dom" and Tessa's default reaction includes the word "brat." 
> 
> I also like that Will's reaction to Tessa being nervous about sex toys because she hasn't used them before is "Let's go shopping you need more sex toys in your life." 
> 
> Also just on a safe sex note: there are ways to clean yourself up properly before you start shoving stuff up your butt and none of that's addressed here. While I try to include safe sex stuff in this story as much as possible and stuff like relubing toys and not leaving them in for too long comes up here because it plays into the fact that active consent and consistent communication is basically one of my kinks at this point. 
> 
> There's some stuff is just always going to happen off screen. Assume that it does happen because otherwise eeeewwww gross but it's also not getting written out because eeeeewwwww gross. You know?
> 
>  
> 
> OH. 
> 
> And I got distracted from writing a "Tessa explores Jem's tattoos" scene AGAIN. Here's a tumbr post with visuals for those curious. http://upagainstabookcase.tumblr.com/post/165327611289/ive-just-read-temporary-madness-for-the-first


	8. Chapter Eight (not whatever)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted the Christmas stuff before this because it was only partially done when I wrote the Christmas stuff. 
> 
> It's supposed to have a lead in where Tessa suggests the whole thing before they do it but it holds together without that scene and I couldn't seem to find a scenario that I liked for that conversation. Usually the non-porn segments of this fic carry characterization that I think is important and I couldn't figure out what I wanted that to be for this. I just wanted to write the smut. So here it is, posted without the lead up.

 Will watched her as she studied him. He was in too deep. Her expression was soft and curious and she was wrapped up in soft floral pajamas. She had her hair pulled back in a messy bun and it all came together in a look made her gentle and wholesome. She was gentle and wholesome. They were the corrupting force in her life. She could have lived her whole life happily vanilla if it hadn't been for the two of them. Instead she was here, watching him, like this.

Jem was tying him up. Ropes not cuffs. It was a slow tedious process. Will found it annoying. Jem loved tying him up. Usually Will wasn't willing to compromise on it and Jem would let the conversation drop once Will had shot down the initial suggestion. It took too long and required he stay still for too long and there were other things they could do.

He had agreed to it this time around because Tessa had been the one to ask and she did not ask for things like that. Will was a sucker. The real reason that Will was here with his arms tied behind his back was that he was a sucker. They had probably sat down and decided on who would make the suggestion long before he heard about it.

Jem whispered an order and Will did as he was told. He sat up a little straighter and let his attention skate away from Tessa as Jem put his arms where he wanted them. The position forced him to arch his back just a little. Not enough to be painful, but enough to make him feel a little bit exposed and very trapped. He wasn’t a fan of being restrained like this.

That was the point.

Jem knew where his buttons were and this was intended to hit on all of them. He had an audience with Tessa there and he was playing to it. By the time he was done, Will would be nearly immobile. It was going to be a very long session. It was going to be soft and slow and Will was probably going to die of frustration before anyone else even took their pants off.

He looked up at Tessa again. She came a little closer and ran her fingers through the hair at his forehead.

"Are you ok with this?" she asked.

She was going to unintentionally make this so much more. Will wasn’t sure what kind of more. So much worse. So much better. So much more. She was actually that nice. Jem would play the game but Tess was actually, truly, nice. It unbalanced everything. Jem would have said that and Will would have told him to fuck himself but Tessa asked and he said, "Yes. I'm fine."

"You look annoyed."

Fucking hell. He should just lie to her but instead he told the truth, "I'm a bit embarrassed."

"Do you get shy?" she asked.

"Do not tease me when I'm already tied up and about to get fucked."

"The teasing is half the point, William," Jem said.

"Not the same kind of teasing."

"I like that you're shy around her."

"I'm not shy."

"Does he blush?" Tessa asked.

"I don't think I have ever made him blush."

"I told you, I'm not shy. I am extremely hot and well aware of it. I don’t have any reason to be shy."

Tessa smiled at him. Almost mocking. On Jem, that expression would have definitely been mocking but it was a little harder to read Tessa when she was like this. He wanted to reach for her but his wrists were bound securely behind his back and all he would be able to do was struggle. He was going to struggle later and he didn't want to start too soon. She might have just been smiling to comfort him.

"Why don't you ever use ropes on me?" she asked.

"Will's impatient," Jem said.

"Cuffs are easier, same end result, sex partner all tied up," Will said.

"Not as pretty though," Tessa said.

She reached out to trace the rope that ran along his chest. He watched her finger fiddle with the knot before choosing the next strand to follow.

"I can tie you up if you want to be tied up," Jem said.

"Another day, when you can take your time with it."

"Absolutely."

"You don't need to buy him a gift now," Will said.

"A gift?"

"For Christmas. The chance to spend all day tying you up is the best Christmas present he's going to get this year."

"Christmas morning, bound girl under the tree," Jem said with a laugh.

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, one tied up boy," Tessa didn't actually sing it but it still made Will snort out a laugh.

"The twelve days of Christmas actually begin on Christmas. You're thinking of advent and there isn't a song for advent."

"Don't be a pedant," Jem said.

"I was born a pedant."

"Should we gag him?" Jem asked Tessa.

"Only if he keeps it up. I like listening to him babble when he's uncomfortable. He doesn't blush but he does ramble,” Tessa said which was far too close to exactly the truth. Will did ramble on when he was uncomfortable. He would quote poetry and talk himself in circles rather than admit that he was unnerved. He liked this and he didn’t like that he liked it. There were two sides of him and they were struggling immensely. He didn’t like that Tessa could read that so easily.

"Fuck me," Will said.

"That is the plan," Jem said. "We're just going to make you wait for it. You need to learn to be patient."

Will flipped him off. His hands were bound tightly behind his back but Jem was standing there behind him, still twisting ropes around his chest to create a complicated web. Jem wrapped his hand around Will's finger and leaned into kiss the back of his neck. Will relaxed a little bit. He could give up control. He could.

Something about having Tessa there watching as changing the tone of it. She had asked to help while Will was the submissive one. This was exactly what she had asked for. It disoriented Will a little. He had gotten used to her being the one to take the submissive role in the bedroom. The few times that Jem had fucked him while she was there, she had still been more submissive that he was. It had been two against one for months now and she had been the one. Even when Will let Jem push him around, Tessa was still in a role more submissive than his.

Now she was that half step above him. Jem was in control but Will was the one at the bottom of the power structure.

It was semantics. Tied up was tied up, wasn’t it? It was details. It shouldn't have mattered.

But it did.

Will liked this in theory. He liked Tessa being there and he liked Tessa playing the game like this, in a more active way. She was finding her feet as a part of the relationship not just as an addition to it. He wanted her to be a part of the way they played with each other. He liked that. He did. He just couldn't shake off the feeling that he was giving up too much by taking a role this submissive. Letting Jem tie him up and boss him around had been a part of their relationship since the beginning but letting Tessa tease him and observe him was different.

The problem wasn't that he hated it.

The problem was that he liked it.

He liked the way she was touching the ropes and the knots that Jem had used to tie him up and leave him helpless. He liked how soft and innocent she looked, he liked how kind she was. He liked giving it all up and letting them decide what would happen to him. There was a corner of his thoughts that did not like it, that whispered that he needed to be in complete control and this wasn't acceptable. He shoved it down and forced it to be quiet.

"What do I have to offer for you to touch my skin?" Will asked Tessa.

That was a fucking submissive comment. The little arrogant voice in his head didn't like it. Will ignored it. He had never been a switch before he’d met Jem and even after years together, he was still getting used to switching the dominant side of his thoughts off. They were loud but he pushed them away.

"Because I'll offer you anything you want if you'll stop playing with the ropes and fucking touch me," Will said leaning into the part of his thoughts that refused to submit. He forced the words out past the instinct that told him not to.

Tessa's eyes looked away from him, over his shoulder, at Jem. She could play a more dominant role but she didn't have any interest in being a dom. Not really. She was going to let Jem tell her what to do and then she was going to do it. Will flexed his fingers and Jem grabbed his hand and squeezed before he answered her.

"You should make him promise oral sex. We should lie him down, immobile like this, and sit you up on his face until you come hard," Jem said still holding tight to Will's hand.

"What do you want me to do?" Tessa asked.

"Kiss him," Jem said before Will could collect himself enough to answer.

Will let the last of the little voice go. He could relax into this. He wanted this. He wanted Jem to use her to make him crazy. He wanted the two of them to make him their toy. Tessa pressed a kiss to his cheek and then down his neck. Jem was leaning into Will's back, his cock starting to get hard and his voice soft as he whispered orders to Tessa. Will pressed his ass back into Jem's half hard cock and Jem ignored him in favour of telling Tessa to suck on his nipples. Will dropped his head back to rest on Jem's shoulder as she rubbed her palm along his belly and grazed her teeth along his nipples.

He was hard. He was hard and Tessa was too gentle with him and Jem was very careful in all the ways he used his hands so that he was always teasing and never even approached satisfying. Jem  was gentle and soft like she was but he was also demanding. The ropes were secure now and Jem used them to grab hold of Will and move him around.

"Do not tie me up with my pants on," Will said.

"I wouldn't do that. I'm patient, but I'm not that patient," Jem said.

He had wanted to be naked but as soon as it was a reality, Will wasn't ready to be this exposed and this hard. There was a good chunk of his thoughts that were devoted to the way that Tessa was kissing along his collar bone and running her fingers over his stomach muscles. He couldn't get a hold on his instincts before he started to struggle away from being bound like this and completely naked. Jem didn't stop. He pulled Will's pants down and grabbed hold of the ropes at his lower back to drop him down on his belly in front of Tessa who made a startled sound.

"If you can make her come, maybe I'll let you come too," Jem said.

Jem flipped him over so he was on his back. Will was disoriented but he was pretty sure it was Jem who helped Tessa up into position over his face. He lay flat on his back. His hands bound being his back and his chest pressed out by the arch of the position. He wasn't comfortable but she was right against his face.

Jem had pushed her knees wide so she struggled to sit up and her very wet sex was against his face. He wanted to be able to grab her hips and control where she was sitting but he couldn't. He shifted his position as much as he could so he could lick her. She moaned and shifted and that brought her a little closer. Not as close as he wanted her but close enough to do something worthwhile.

Once he started to suck, she adjusted for him, pressing her sex against his mouth so he could start pushing her towards orgasm. He struggled against his lack of hands as he worked his mouth against her body and heard her moan for him.

Jem rubbed his cock and then went back to binding his ankle so that his knee was held tight in a frog tie. Will was flexible enough for it and it wasn't until he tried to shift that he realized what Jem had done. It was tight and unpleasant. He was nearly immobile. Tessa's body was pressed against his mouth and he couldn't force her up to complain to Jem. There was a safe word but the desire to complain and the desire to stop were not the same.

The only thing he could control was what he did to Tessa while she was straddling him like this so he put all his attention into making her come and making her come hard. She was wet and moaning and easy. He knew how to make her shiver with pleasure.

Jem got in the way before could push that shiver of pleasure into a true orgasm.

Tessa was as disoriented by stopping as Will was.

Jem pulled her up so that her knees were on either side of Will's head but she was too high for him to reach at all. She was there. He could see her and smell her and still taste her in his mouth but she was too high to touch again. Jem made eye contact with Will for a moment before he pulled Tessa into his arms so they were both still kneeling over Will and Jem pushed her the rest of the way to the orgasm with his fingers against her clit, hard and fast and unforgiving. She gasped and moaned and Will was left to just watch it as she came and buried her face against Jem's neck to ride out the after shocks.

"You suck his cock, while he sucks mine," Jem told Tessa.

"Is this another game, I'm guaranteed to lose?" Will asked.

"Yes," Jem said with a laugh.

"Bastard."

"If I come before you do, I will untie you and you can fuck us both however you want. If you come first though, we're not going to stop and you're going to have to practice how to take it when your body is overstimulated."

Will had more experience sucking cock than Tessa did but he was distracted and already on edge. If the terms of the contest had been fair, he would have won. The terms were not fair. Jem was stroking his body and making sure he was on the edge of the orgasm so that Tessa didn't have to do much. She could have given him a high school blow job and he would have lost his mind to her but she was far better than that and he couldn’t possibly hold out against her when he was so close.

It didn't help that Will liked the way she did everything Jem told her. He adjusted her jaw and she shifted the way he wanted her to. She lay between his legs and she sucked hard and fast and deep. Will was trying to remember how to suck cock while his own cock sank into the girl between his legs. Jem kept her in place as Will slid all the way into her mouth. His balls were pressed into her face and he knew she couldn't breathe. He slid out and she coughed before she took him again.

He came fast. He came first. He came with his cock buried in her throat. He couldn’t remember when she had gotten so good at this. Once she had been fumbling and too careful. Now she was swallowing his cock and licking the base of it while it was buried in her mouth. He didn’t fight the orgasm. He filled her throat and when she pulled away, he kept coming in her mouth as well.

Tessa gasped as he lay, bound and spent over her. The last spurt of his orgasm ran down her cheek but he had no illusions that he was in control. He was theirs. The two of them owned him completely and he let himself enjoy that while Tessa panted against his stomach.

Jem started on his ass before he had caught his breath. Fingers first. Hard and fast but narrow enough that his unready body could take it. Will whimpered. He hated that a sound like that had been pulled from his body but his cock ached and everything else was sensitive as well.

Tessa was sat up in front of his face again. Will didn’t care any more if it was about some game or challenge, he was just happy to have her close enough to taste again. If it had been a game, Will would have lost easily. Tessa had already come once and Jem hadn't come at all. There was no way to force her over the edge before Jem came but Will wanted her to come. He wanted to watch her arch and shiver and cry out his name.

He lay on his stomach now, his hips up in the air to allow Jem to take him and his face buried against her cunt. He licked and sucked and tried not to get distracted by Jem slamming into him from behind. He wasn't hard but his cock ached and his body thrummed with the energy of the orgasm that was building. A dry orgasm was an intensity that Will loved but refused to admit that he loved. Jem was going to force him to come hard in spite of being soft and spent.

Jem knew how to find all his buttons and Will gasped as he rubbed his cock against the right spot, deep inside Will’s body.

“Pay attention to what you’re doing,” Tessa said.

He had said the same thing to her before and he looked up at her. He had intended to glare but Jem pressed him forward and he cried out, pressing his face against her thigh and shivering. His head swam. Jem wasn’t done yet and Will fell apart first. Tessa didn’t try to make him do what she said, she just stroked his hair and his back as he whimpered against her skin and edged towards an orgasm that was going to be more pain than pleasure.

Jem held his hand and squeezed as he got closer. It was a relief. Will was starting to ache. His cock was half hard again but not ready for it and every time Jem pushed his body forward, it rubbed against the sheets and that hurt. Will was moaning. He couldn’t tell any more if this was an orgasm or if he’d just had more than he could take.

Jem didn’t come inside. Jem pulled out, dropped the condom off and came on Tessa’s stomach. She looked up at him and Will’s cock made another failed attempt at getting hard. She looked surprised by it.

“You should clean her up,” Jem said.

Will had no range of movement but he did as he was told. He licked Jem’s cum off her skin while she stroked his hair and took long hard breaths. Will liked the taste and he liked the way Tessa shifted below him. Will finished licking up the last drops and then slid back down into place between her thighs and sucked on her clit. It took her by surprise and she gasped. Will stopped and tilted his head back to look at her. He had to blink a few times to make his eyes focus. He was exhausted but he wanted her to cum for him more than he wanted to fall asleep.

“Please?” Will asked her.

“Yes, of course,” she said.

She always defaulted to being exceptionally polite when she was overwhelmed. Jem had dropped against the pillows beside her and he slid in closer so his head rested on her shoulder and he could watch Will. Will held the eye contact as he licked at Tessa’s wet sex. She moaned and curled in closer to Jem while spreading her knees for him.

Will sucked and nuzzled and drew it out for a little bit before he took her clit in his mouth and brought her over the edge. She came hard and he didn’t stop right away. He had been pushed past what he could handle and he wanted her to feel some echo of that ache as well.

“Oh my god,” she said.

Jem caught her before she could pull away. He wrapped his arm around her back to hold her still and grabbed her knee with his other hand to keep her spread wide. Will didn’t stop until she cried out his name. It was a little thing but Jem helping him to make her come like that took some of the edge off of his humiliation. It quieted the little voice inside his head that hated being the one who got fucked instead of the one did the fucking.

Will lay with his head on Tessa’s thigh, his arms bound behind him and Jem rubbing the back of his neck and gave up the little voice. He let himself collapse into the moment and enjoy it. He rubbed his cheek against her thigh and admitted to himself that he liked being taken like this. He wouldn’t say it out loud but he closed his eyes and relaxed into it. It was a very good place to be.


	9. Christmas Eve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no porn in this update.   
> Though there is porn coming in the near future.   
> There are also two full chapters that go before this.   
> But it is actually Christmas Eve right now so here's the Christmas Eve chapter.   
> I'll back fill the rest later.

Will was an asshole. Jem didn't care about Christmas. He hadn't been raised with the holiday. There was one picture of him at eight years old on Santa's knee at the mall but that was the only evidence that he had ever experienced anything vaguely Christmas related in his entire life. Will on the other hand was a Christmas fiend. Will loved Christmas. Will loved cookies and carols and decorations and had insisted on getting a plastic Christmas tree to put up in the corner of the apartment in spite of the fact that he was abandoning Jem for the entire week leading up to the damned holiday.

The tree was a reminder that there was a holiday and that the holiday was supposed to be spent with family and loved ones and Jem was spending it alone. Dead parents, missing boyfriend, girlfriend he was too afraid to call, no pets, no close friends. Putting all that emotion on the tree was ridiculous but he sat on the sofa with his back to it and pretended it wasn't there as he watched movies that were not festive.

His phone buzzed.

He picked it up and braced himself for Will being chipper. Will was probably on his way to midnight mass with his sisters and his parents and his new niece. Will probably needed the distraction. Living family members were a pain in the ass. Will's mother was entirely uncomfortable with his choice of living arrangement but was trying so hard to be supportive that she made it even worse than it needed to be. Two days with his mother was enough to make Will crazy.

The message wasn't from Will.

"Can I come over?"

Tessa.

Oh.

Jem stared at the message.

"I'm cranky," he sent back.

"I'll bring hot chocolate and cheer you up."

"Yes, please."

Jem met her at the door. He had turned off the tv and turned on the lights on the stupid plastic tree. He had brushed his hair and put on a nice shirt. He rarely got Tessa alone and he didn't know what to do with this. She looked up at him and smiled.

"Hi."

"I brought you a gift," she said.

She held out a small box in brightly wrapped paper. Jem turned it over in his hands and leaned down to kiss her. She pushed up on her toes to meet it. He hadn't gotten her anything. He hadn't expected to see her. He had been so wrapped up in Will going to Wales that he hadn't thought about having her here.

"Are you a midnight mass kind of person?" she asked.

"I'm not a Christmas person at all," he said. "But I will gladly take you to Midnight Mass if you want to go."

"I grew up religious. It's taken a lot of work to get over it," she said.

"How about hot chocolate and a plastic tree and I can make you dinner?" Jem said.

"Perfect."

Jem pulled her in close kissed her forehead. Then her cheek. Then her mouth. She smiled and pushed back into the kiss. He closed the door and pinned her against it so he could kiss her harder. He was lonely. He was cranky. He was impossibly glad to have her there. He didn’t know how to say that.

When he finally let her go, she disappeared into the kitchen to put on a kettle for the hot chocolate he had promised. Jem stood in the living room and chewed on his lip. He pulled out his phone.

“Tessa’s here,” Jem sent to Will.

The response was almost instantaneous: “Good. She’s early but good. You need someone there. Don’t be moody.”

“I wish you were here.”

“I’ll be home before New Year’s. Have fun with the hot girl until I get there.”

Will’s messages were cheerful. He wasn’t the type to use emoticons and exclamation points but he had filled the message with them. Jem scowled at it.

He wanted Tessa there, he was glad to have Tessa there. She was standing in his kitchen wearing a nice red dress and waiting for the kettle to boil and he wanted her there. But Will wasn't even in the city and he was pulling all the strings and Jem's bad mood hadn't let go enough for him to just enjoy it.

He went into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around Tessa and nuzzled her neck. She laughed and leaned back, dropping her head against his shoulder and spreading her fingers against his. He sighed.

"Will asked you to be here," he said.

"He didn't want you to be alone."

"Where would you be if he hadn't asked?"

"Sitting alone in my apartment trying to work up the courage to call and ask for an invitation to be here."

"You are always welcome here," Jem said. He tightened his arms around her waist and pulled her in close to him. "Always," he said again.

"Why didn't you go with Will?" she asked.

"His mother is intense," Jem said. "She's a lot like Will and while Will is a brand of intense that I like, his mother is a brand of intense that just makes me uncomfortable. I lost my mother when I was twelve and Linette Herondale's attempts to mother me make me want to jump out a window. She's wonderful. I know that she's wonderful and she's trying so hard to be nice and to accept me into the family. I know. She's just more than I can handle for a full week. His father doesn't like me. Or his father doesn't like that Will chose to shack up with a man. I don't think it's personal. He's polite but distant and honestly, that's easier. Linette's a smothering force of love and affection. I can't take it for more than an hour at a time."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Jem was leaning into her.

"I need to call my aunt today. Do you want to meet her?"

"Really?"

"Without any explanations. Just as my friend Jem who also didn't want to spend Christmas Eve alone."

"Is she more smothering or more polite disapproval?"

"If we were to explain it to her, she would be ‘raging disapproval and discussions of hell and sin and judgment by God' but we're not going to explain it so she's be politely curious and trying really hard not to let her racism show."

Jem laughed.

"I'm not making that up,” Tessa said.

"I know you're not."

Jem didn't like Christmas but Jem liked having Tessa there. He liked helping her set up her laptop so that the Christmas tree was in the background when she called her aunt. He liked being introduced to her family even her aunt did look a little like a caricature of a severe relative from an old movie. He liked leaning in to kiss her hard after the call was done and she was still frowning at the screen.

"Will's the only one of us with a happy family isn't he?" Jem said.

"Harriet means well."

"She mentioned that your brother has been arrested," Jem said.

"I know. She'll call me back later and try and convince me to come home to support him because his arrest is more important than my internship," she slouched over and put her head on his shoulder. "I'm not a terrible person for refusing to go. I'm not. He's the idiot who tried to con a undercover cop. I can only help so much."

"Don't go," Jem said.

"What about your family? It's not happy?"

"They're all dead, alas," Jem said with as much sarcasm as he could muster. "I have an uncle. He lives in Italy. He married his job. I have a foster family. They're lovely, they live here in London and would definitely have had me for Christmas in spite of the fact that they have two small children of their own now. They’re wonderful but it would be an imposition if I showed up."

"Jem."

"It's old news," he said.

"What happened?"

"My mother was a police officer. She arrested a gang member. The gang retaliated. I am now the only surviving member of my family," he said with that edge of sarcasm back in his voice.  Which left out that it had been a near thing. He had been beaten badly before the police had broken into the family home to find him unconscious, his father dead and his mother on the last few minutes of bleeding out. He remembered most of it. He didn't want to relive it by explaining it.

Tessa didn't ask the follow up questions that he was braced for. The sarcasm he had put in place wasn't necessary. She just wrapped an arm around his neck and pressed a kiss to her temple. He felt guilty for trying to put up his defenses. He didn’t need to defend against Tessa Gray. He knew that.

He grabbed her and rolled her over so that he could bury his face in her neck and hold onto her. She pulled him in close and he settled in close so she was pressed flat against the couch cushions. This was not what they did. He hadn't asked for comfort from her before and he wouldn't have done it if he had been thinking clearly. He wouldn't have brought up the conversation topic at all. This was not something he talked about. Tessa wrapped her arms around him and so he didn't stop to think about it. He didn't stop to second guess this. She was stroking his hair and he let himself relax into it.

He didn't want to get up and Tessa didn't ask for it. They lay on the couch together and fell asleep fully dressed while the Christmas tree Will had bought twinkled in the corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, here's some angst and tragic backstory.   
> I'm not very good at this am I?
> 
> Rope bondage Christmas morning though so there's that! (I don't know if it will be up on Christmas, probably not, but soon).


	10. Christmas Morning - Part One

Christmas morning dawned bright and cold. Tessa awoke to the sound of church bells.  It was such an absurdly British thing. No one rang church bells like that in New York. She tried to roll over but she was pinned down by a weight on her chest. She was too warm and she didn’t remember where she was. She tried to sit up but the weight against her was a body and it was bigger than she was and wrapped around her. She couldn’t even see anything clearly when she tried to open her eyes and pull free.

“Tess?” Jem’s voice brought her back from the edge of panic.

She had fallen asleep with him on the sofa. It was his arms wrapped around her. She tucked her nose in against his neck and fell still. It was Jem. She was in his apartment. His arms tightened and she let herself relax and play with his hair.

“Are you awake?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Are you hungry? I can make something for breakfast,” he said.

The mention of breakfast brought her back to when it was, not just where she was. She kissed his throat and said, “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Angel,” he said.

“I don’t want to get up yet,” she told him.

“Me neither,” he said.

They lay together for a long time. Once Jem was awake his hands started roaming. He pushed his palms up under her shirt and rubbed her stomach. He nuzzled her cheek and her neck. The cuddling was gentle but no less bossy than it usually was. It was a nice way to wake up. There were many sides of letting the boys be dominant but this was the one she could never quite articulate. She liked knowing that she wouldn’t have to make any decisions for a little while. Life was full of hard choices but when she was relaxing back into Jem’s arms like this, that could all wait. For a little while all the decisions would be made by someone else. She had crossed a line about a month before where she trusted the two of them completely. The idea of using the safe word was almost absurd. She wasn’t going to need it because she was safe here.

“Do you miss Will?” he asked.

“No,” she said and then added, “I will, later, right now, all I want is for you to keep doing that.”

He hesitated for a moment and then he settled his hand back against her breast and went back to rubbing her nipple with his thumb. She reached up and ran a hand along his jaw. He turned to look at her and she sat up enough to kiss him. His hips flexed, pressing her down as he kissed her back. Her head spun a little bit.

“Do you want to open Christmas presents?” she asked.

Will had asked her to show up on Christmas morning but the fear that he wouldn’t want her here had left her nervous and uneasy and she had shown up early to stop herself from freaking out so much that she wouldn’t show up at all. The way Will had explained it, Jem liked to tie people up and Will didn’t particularly enjoy being tied up. He wanted Tessa to let Jem tie her down however he pleased. That thought was there in her mind, beating every other thought back. The idea of Jem tying her up was distracting to say the least.

“Breakfast first,” he said. “My dad always had rules.”

Breakfast was an ordeal. Tessa didn’t know what Will had actually put under the tree as part of this little plot and she had no idea how Jem would take it. She was impatient and nervous and already starting to get wet before it had even begun. Jem was putting off the Christmas gifts. He didn’t explicitly say that it was because he missed Will but Tessa knew him well enough to fill in that blank.

When they had finally finished cooking and eating and discussing the damn breakfast, Jem sat down with her in front of the Christmas tree. He handed her a box. Small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. He placed it there but didn’t take his hand off of it for a moment.

“Is this for me?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s a little bit intense, if you don’t want that, it’s fine. You don’t have to open it.”

Jem wasn’t looking at her. He was staring out the window. She pulled the little box away from him and turned it in her hand. He had wrapped it in silver paper and a little red bow. It was the right size to be jewelry but a pair of earrings didn’t seem worth his nerves.

“I want to open it,” she said.

Jem turned back to her and forced a smile. He didn’t look away again as she untied the ribbon and carefully opened the paper. Definitely jewelry. A little blue velvet box. She smiled at him but his nerves didn’t fade. She glanced up at him and he forced a smile but it was a very forced smile. She opened the box.

Inside was a circle of jade. A pendant with Chinese characters inscribed on it.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“I know,” Jem said. “It was my mother’s.”

“You can’t give me something that used to be your mother’s,” Tessa said immediately.

She still had her fingers on the pendant. She could feel the inscription below her fingers. She wanted it. She already thought it was perfect and she didn’t even know what the inscription said. Last night, he had told her that his parents were dead and taking something, anything, that had belonged to them felt improper. He had brought this with him from Shanghai when he had left. It wasn’t just a necklace.

“Yes, I can,” Jem said. “I want you to have it. I’m a sentimental mess. I want you to carry a piece of me and my family with you wherever you go. I want you to have it. I wouldn’t have given it to you if I didn’t mean it.”

“Jem?” she said because she couldn’t force the rest of her thoughts into order.

“My mother told me that someday I should give it to the woman I loved. I went and fell in love with Will and I’ll never know whether or not she would accept that,” Jem reached out and took the pendant out of the box as he spoke. “Then there’s you. I love you. I do. I keep telling myself that it’s too early in this thing to call it love or our relationship is too complicated to call it love but it is love. I love you. Maybe its not as simple as my mother imagined it would be but you are the woman that I love and I want you to have this. It’s beautiful and so are you. It’s a piece of me and my history and I want you to have a piece of me to carry with you.”

He fell silent. He hadn’t put it on her yet but he held the chain in his hands and the little stone hung on the gold chain between his hands.

“I love you too,” she said.

Jem didn’t try and answer her in words. He leaned in and kissed her hard. She felt his hands come up behind her neck and he fastened the chain without breaking the kiss. He pushed her down and she stretched out below him.

Jem was always in control. It had never seemed like a front before but now that it was gone, now that he was pinning her down and kissing her hard and fumbling with her clothes, she realized that he had always been careful before. She had never seen Jem quite this emotional. Every moment of fumbling or gasping or burying his face against her neck in embarrassment made her love him more. Jem with his walls down was an incredible thing.

He had just as much tendency toward roughness, he pinned her hips and bit her lips and pressed her mouth open on every kiss. He was just as dominant as he ever was but he was not careful or controlled. He held her too close. He kissed her too hard. He whispered incoherent things that might have been in a foreign language but he said them with such intensity against her ear that she knew what he meant even if she didn’t understand it. He was beautiful and intense and she could barely remember how to breathe when he was touching her.

They made it up onto the sofa where he could press her hips down into the cushions when he took her hard and slow. His hips ground into hers and each time their bodies came together hard, she gasped. She didn’t ask him to stop. She kissed him back and arched her back and let her body beg for him to do what he wanted to her. She was going to ache later but she didn’t care.

The pendant rested against her collar bone. The words, “I love you,” were heavy in her ears and Jem collapsed around her, turning every inch of that emotion into sensation. Hands on her body, hips against hers, his cock pressing into her body, his mouth against her neck. Intense. Too much. Gentle and careful and still more than she had been prepared for.

He came before she did.

She expected that to be the end of it but he stayed close. His cock softened against her thigh as his hand settled between her thighs and he pulled the orgasm out of her with his fingers. He was lying on top of her, pinning her down and making her come hard enough to make her head spin.

“My angel,” he whispered in her ear as the orgasm crested.

She nodded but couldn’t get the words out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a whole second half of this once they get to opening Will's gift but someone on Tumblr was asking for updates so here's more emotional Jessa stuff. Because that's my jam.


	11. Christmas Morning - Part Two

Jem pressed a kiss to the side of her face. She rolled up onto her elbows and blinked down at him. Jem grinned at her. He did not really want to admit how desperate he had been to see her smile. She smiled now. Easy and effortless and happy. It didn’t seem like such a big deal where moments ago it had seemed like it would be the entire world. He kissed her again. It had been the entire world.

It was still the entire world.

Tessa Gray smiling was always going to be important to him. Always. He kissed her harder.

“Do you think Will would be upset?” Jem asked.

“No. I think he expected you to open his present before we got to this point,” Tessa said with a laugh.

“What is his present?” Jem asked.

His gaze skated to the tree. It was a perfectly respectable tree. Tessa had chosen to set up the webcam call to her aunt with it as the backdrop because there was absolutely nothing questionable about it. The gifts were just boxes. The decorations were simple and wholesome. Jem had watched as she had checked. The last thing she wanted was to discover that Will thought dildo shaped ornaments were hilarious after she had finished the call to her very conservative aunt.

It was just the normal collection of baubles and garlands that anyone might buy at a shop. Will had bought it all. Jem had ignored the process. He hadn’t been sure until Tessa was poking around at it that it wasn’t secretly bawdy as hell. Will probably would think that dildos were hilarious ornaments but in the interest of the holiday, he had restrained himself.

Under the tree there were still three boxes. Both were addressed to Jem. One had come in the post from the Branwells and was probably practical. Socks and sweets and maybe a jumper. Charlotte would have written a nice note and included a picture of the family and a wish for him to come visit more often. That gift he ignored. The other two were from Will. They looked just as wholesome but Tessa was blushing just talking about it which meant it was certainly not wholesome.

“I don’t know exactly what is in the box, only that he thought you would enjoy it more if I was here,” Tessa said.

“And you agreed to that?” Jem asked.

“He promised me that it wasn’t anything we hadn’t done before,” she said. “I trust you enough that even if he had wrapped up a knife or something equally terrifying, I wouldn’t run out the door.”

Jem grinned at her. “I doubt he bought us a knife.”

“I know. Me too.”

Jem pulled the box out from under the tree and watched her as he opened it. She was sitting too far back. She couldn’t see what was inside. His smile widened. She bit her lip and tilted her head in a silent question. Jem just smiled back at her.

“It’s something good?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said tilting it toward her so she could see.

It was a box of rope. Red and white because Will was apparently a Christmas purist.

“Are you still sure that you want to participate?”

“That is a lot less unsettling than a knife would have been,” she said.

 

Jem tied her up gently and slowly. He started with a harness that didn't actually restrict her movements at all but he liked the way she watched him loop and tie rope around her body. He didn't have a lot of experience with this and had to unravel and redo it a few times before it looked the way he wanted to. She smiled at him as he worked. Her expression was curious and she asked little questions as he did it.

Will’s gift for her had been a corset and stockings that pushed her breasts up and didn’t include panties. It was all white. White corset, white stockings and garter belt. She didn’t quite look innocent wearing it but she looked beautiful.  All together, the corset and the rope and her smile made her look like something out of a dream he could only half remember.

He wrapped her up until she was crisscrossed with lines of red.

"Can I tie your arms?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

Her expression switched from curious to aroused as soon as he was restricting her ability to move. Her mouth hung open unless she was thinking about it. He watched her lick her lips and press her mouth closed only to get distracted and let it slip open with a little moan a few minutes later. Her eyes were on him the entire time, if he was out of view, she was talking, demanding answers as he secured her hands behind her back.

She sat on the edge of the bed when he was done. The corset pushed her breasts up and the ropes held her arms back behind her. She could have stood and walked and but the way she watched him was a promise that she wouldn't do that unless he told her to.

"Does anything hurt? Ache or pinch?" he asked.

"No," she said.

He had checked in as he had gone to make sure that he wasn't tying anything too tight but he wanted to check one more time. He leaned down in front of her and kissed her softly. When she leaned in to kiss him back, he pulled away. She tried to follow him but the way she was tied left her unbalanced. He smiled at her and did it again. This time she stayed still when he pulled away. He smiled at her. Her eyes were wide and careful.

"Do you like this?" he asked.

She hesitated before she said, "Yes."

"Really?"

"Don't tell my aunt that I spent Christmas morning like this but I’m enjoying myself so far," she said. "I like this. I am dying to know what you'll do next."

"I'm not going to do anything," Jem said with a smile. He sat down on a chair nearby and slowly pulled off his clothes while she watched him with those wide eyes. "You're going to come over here and suck me off."

She hesitated for a moment before standing and walking towards him. He hadn't tied her feet or her legs at all but she was slow on her feet as though afraid of falling. Her back was straight and her chest pushed out by the way he'd tied her arms. She was bound up in ropes and wrapped like a present.

"Kneel down," he said.

He didn't help her but he was close enough to catch her if she unbalanced herself. Once she was on her knees between his legs, he leaned back and waited. She licked his cock. He wasn't hard yet. He had gotten hard more than once while tying her up like this but he had given himself time to relax before asking her to do this.

 Making her work for it was part of what he wanted. He had every intention of holding out as long as he could. It was hard to suck a cock without your hands for help. Jem knew, he had done it himself. He wanted her to work for this, to fight to make him hard, to fight to make him cum. He wanted her on her knees, bound and obedient and working hard for as long as he could keep her there.

Jem stroked her hair as she started to suck.

She was good at this. Both he and Will loved sucking cock. Both giving and receiving it and she had not only practice but instruction. She could take him down her throat while he was rock hard. Making her do it all, no hands, no Will to help, wasn't going to be easy, but she was still very good at it. Jem relaxed and let her do it. He stroked her hair but didn't guide her. She looked up at him and he smiled at her and ran his fingers along her cheek.

She held his gaze as she sucked him in farther. He was hard now and he hit the back of her mouth.

"All the way, Angel," he said.

She ignored him for another few strokes and then took him down until her nose brushed his stomach and he knew that she couldn't breathe. He pushed his hips up to meet her but didn't hold her in place. She pulled back and gasped and then did it again, taking him all the way down into her mouth. Jem didn't close his eyes. He watched her look up at him with her mouth pressed to the base of his cock for a long moment before she had to pull away and suck in a gasp of breath.

He took his cock in his hand, wrapping his hand around the base and forcing her back to sucking just the top. She knew exactly what he was doing and cast him a bit of a glare. He shrugged and smiled and pet her hair back from  her face with his other hand. He didn't want to come too fast. He wanted to draw it out. It was very hard to draw it out when she had him that deep.

She started working harder. Bobbing her head faster, licking on every stroke, sucking him hard each time she had him in as far as he would let her take him.

"Better," he told her.

She looked up at him. Will would have glared after a comment like that but her gaze was open. Curious rather than angry. She liked it when he was controlling as long as he stayed within her hard limits, she would take anything he dished out.

"Keep going, baby," he said.

She did. Jem held out as long as he could.

"I'm going to come in your mouth, I want you to swallow it all," Jem said.

She gave him a very small nod while his cock was still in her mouth. He moved his hand and positioned his cock for her to take all the way down. She hesitated for a second and then pressed herself against him. He was past her gag reflex and past the point that she could breathe around. He thrust up into her mouth a few times before he pulled her back and let her gasp for breath. Her mouth was wet and spit ran down her chin. Jem rubbed it away with his thumb and then pulled her back to his cock. She came back willingly and took him again without prompting. He thrust up and held her in place as he came hard, his cum running down her throat and spilling out into her mouth.

He let her go and she sat back on her heels. Swallowing and licking her lips. He pulled her forward and she licked off the last drips from his cock as well before blinking up at him.

"That was incredible," he said.

He hooked his fingers into the rope harness and pulled her a little closer so that he could position her so that she lay with her head on his lap as she knelt between his knees. His cock was close to her face but not close enough for her to lick or play with. He had come hard and he needed to recover before he could handle her touching him again. He held her there with his hands stroking her hair and back as he caught his breath. She was trapped at eye level with his cock as it got soft again. She lay where he put her and tilted her head back into the stroke of his fingers.

"Tell me if you like this," he said.

It was almost a game. He didn't know if she knew that they played it but he enjoyed it. He wanted to hear her tell him that he liked it.

"I like this," she said pressing a kiss to his thigh.

She always said yes. He didn't ask unless he was sure. If he wasn't sure he asked another question. He knew she would say yes. He didn't ask unless he had her in a position that would make her blush or squirm if it was mentioned in polite company. He liked hearing her say that she enjoyed it. Nice girls did not like to kneel tied up with their mouths tasting of cum and a cock in their face. He liked making her tell him that she wanted to be where he put her.

"If I took a picture of you and sent it to Will?" Jem said.

"I would murder you," she said in the same soft voice.

"Really?" he asked.

"Are you serious?" she asked. Her head snapped up and she sat back on her knees and looked up at him.

The movement startled him. She had been soft and pliant and now she was stiff and alert, eyes on him, looking uncomfortable in all the rope for the first time. Her eyes were wide. She had been wearing lipstick and it was smudged across her mouth and cheek. Protectiveness surged up in his chest like a tangible thing. He had been the one to upset her and he immediately hated himself for it.

"It was a serious request but if it's a hard no, I won't do it. I didn’t think you’d mind so much," he said.

"Don't take pictures of me like this, don't," she said, an edge of panic crept into her voice.

Jem dropped down in front of her, on his knees and very close to her.

"Hey, Angel, I won't. If you're into it, it doesn't happen. I'll send him a text message and tell him no," Jem said.

"Ok," she said. "I trust you, I just, I don't, what if someone else saw it?"

"Nobody sees you unless you want them to," Jem said.

"Ok."

"Let me take you to bed. No pictures. This is just between us.”

“Ok.”

“Do you want to come over and  over or not at all?"

"Those are my choices?"

"Yes," he said. "I don't know which one I want you to choose. I like it when you beg but when you've come over and over you start to get all spacey and overwhelmed. I like both. So you're call."

She held her silence for a moment. Jem stood and used the ropes to help pull her unsteadily to her feet. She stumbled into him and he held her steady.

"Tessa?"

"Over and over," she finally said.

"Awesome. I found a thing on the internet I want to try. Come on," he said.

 

Will's phone blessedly interrupted the conversation he was having with his younger sister. They were sitting in an old-fashioned parlour with one of his mother's three Christmas trees and discussing their new nephew. The baby was adorable. He was eight months old and he had unruly curly brown hair and blue eyes. Will had to admit he might have been the cutest child that had ever been born. His mother and his older sister had managed to turn Christmas that year into a festival of baby related things and Will was starting to lose his mind.

"Mum adores it," Cecily said, "She is going to start to pressure the both of us to start having babies too so she can be super Grandma and have hundreds of grandchildren."

"Alas, so gay and I have no uterus," Will said.

"You could adopt."

"Ha. Have you met me? I shouldn't be allowed near children."

"You have a long term partner who is adorable and Mom loves. I am single. So you're definitely going to be her next project for marriage and babies. She'll be able to tell all her society friends about how progressive she is for throwing a wedding for her gay son," Cecily said.

"Fuck. No. I will jump of a bridge before I invite a single one of her society friends to my wedding and Jem would jump off the bridge first. He won’t even come for fucking Christmas dinner. Mum is not turning either one of us into her gay wedding project. Fuck that. If she tries, I’m going to tell all her society friends that I’m not only bi but I am really into threesomes," Will said.

“Don’t be gross,” Cecily said. The comment stung a little. Will was surprised by his reaction. He had started it but he didn’t like hearing it described like that. He was really into threesomes and while he wasn’t going to defend that to Cecily, he still didn’t like having the thing they had with Tessa reduced to a word like ‘gross.’ He needed better vocabulary to talk about it. And he needed to keep the entire topic of conversation away from his parents in case his mother decided to be supportive.

She was usually more intense when she was being supportive than when she was being judgmental. She had refused to meet Will’s first boyfriend. Then, a few years later, she had insisted on trying to make Jem a member of the family. Will still couldn’t decide which one was worse.

“Don’t encourage Mum to marry me off like a Victorian era daughter,” Will said.

Before the conversation could continue, his phone rang.

"James, I love you, please save me," Will said as a greeting.

"Hi," Jem said.

"I mean it. Cecily thinks my mother is going to start pressuring us to get married and adopt children."

"You shouldn't be trusted with children," Jem said

"Exactly," Will said. He unfolded himself from the sofa and went to stand by the window and look out at the cold but snowless lawn. "How are you enjoying my Christmas gift?"

"Am I on speaker?"

"No, should I put you on speaker?"

"Fuck no," Jem said.

"You're not on speaker."

"Listen."

Will wasn't sure what to expect but the sound of Tessa crying out was unexpected. She gasped a few times and then whined a little before Jem stopped whatever he was doing. Will kept his body still. He wasn’t sure what to do with the hand that wasn’t holding the phone so he shoved it in his pocket as he leaned against the window sill and looked at his own reflection against the snowy garden. He could still hear Tessa gasping in the background of the call.

"It's three in the afternoon," Will said.

"Has that ever stopped us before?"

"Hmm," Will said because Cecily was sitting there and he didn't want to give her any more ammunition for asking him what the hell Jem was saying on the other end of the call.

"You remember that wand thing? That ridiculously expensive vibrator that neither one of us I liked? You can tie it up so that it's held in just the right place on Tess. She likes it," Jem said.

"You can always just send a pic."

"The words, 'I would murder you' were used when I suggested that so you're going to have to make do with listening in. She's close, do you want to listen to her go over the edge? Again. I think she's going to call quits on me soon. I've pushed her a right up to the edge of what she can handle, already."

Jem’s tone was conversational. The vibrator in question was uncomfortably strong. Ropes had never interested Will as much as they interested Jem but the idea of some overly complicated rope contraption holding that thing against her body until she made a sound like that was overpowering every single other thought in his head.

Will spoke some Chinese, not as much as he would like, but enough for moments like this. "I need a train ticket."

Jem laughed at him. "Come home. She's got as much time off work as you do. I can have her tied up and waiting for you when you get here."

"Shit," Will said.

"Should I turn it on again?" Jem asked.

"Are you asking me?" Will said.

"Yes."

"You should do that, yeah."

Will left the room without a word to Cecily. Tessa moaned a little at first but it pitched higher, very fast. He could imagined her struggling as he slipped into the bathroom and closed his eyes. He locked the door and pretended he was there. She cried out and Jem made a soothing noise that did nothing but make her cry out again. Will listened to her voice change as she got closer. It was a very short road. She said, "Please," and Jem just whispered something soft into her ear. She tried his name but he still didn't stop the toy.

Will hadn't liked the toy. It was marketed as a magic wand and it was too intense too fast. It made his cock ache in a way that wasn't good. Jem hadn't liked it either. It was obvious that Tessa found it too intense just like that had but she wasn't asking for it to stop. Will was already hard. He had been hard from the first time she had pleaded. He had been half hard before he had escaped the room with his sister.

"Should I give her a break?" Jem asked.

"A little more," Will said.

Tessa cried out again. Jem said something soothing and Will gave up on being proper and dropped his pants to rub himself as he listened. Jem had him on speaker phone so Tessa could hear what he said as easily as he could hear her.

"She can stop when I come," Will said in a low voice.

"Please, Will," her voice was breathy and uneven.

"Keep going, baby," he said to her.

He wanted her to keep begging. She gasped again and cried out.

"Angel," he said.

"Will," she said again.

"Tell me," he said.

"Please."

"Please what?"

"It's too much, please, please."

Will kept her there, while he jerked his own cock. He listened to her fight the toy that Jem had trapped between her legs. Over stimulation was a kind of pain. Tessa always fought it when it was happening and then asked for it again later. Will loved the idea of her squirming while she begged. Tessa submitted to just about every ridiculous whim either of them came up with but he'd never heard her beg like this. 

"Tell me, again, baby," he said.

"Please, Will, please," she said.

He came with a muffled moan because this was his mother's house and Cecily was probably going to come looking for him at any moment. He rested his forehead against the tile of bathroom wall and sighed. He heard the change in Tessa's breathing as Jem turned the toy off let her relax.

"Be there when I get there," he said.

"No where else I want to be," Tessa said. Her voice was uneven and every protective instinct he had raised up. She was with Jem and there was no where safer than that but he still hated being so far away when she sounded like that. Spent and overwhelmed and nervous.

"Jem?" he said.

"I'll take care of her, she's ok," Jem said.

"I know."

"I love you," Jem said.

"I love you too," Will said. "I love you both."

"I know, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Fuck. Yes. I'd leave tonight if my mother wouldn't murder me and bury me in the garden."

"Don't get murdered. We'll be here when you get home," Jem said.

Will stayed leaned against the wall in the bathroom with the phone blinking “call ended” at him for a long time before he could collect himself enough to clean up and go back out into the real world with babies and bundt cakes and his family. He was already pulling up his train reservation when he went back to sit down.

He wanted to be home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact:
> 
> These are the words that will push me over a million words posted to AO3.   
> I'm proud of that.


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